《Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a LVL100 Catgirl Chef!》 Exposition!!! Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Well, whoever said that has obviously never watched competitive marble racing. Or been stuck in a dungeon on a time loop. Or watched competitive marble racing in a dungeon on a time loop. I¡¯ve done both. Many, many times. Because seriously, there¡¯s not much else to do down here, and apparently one of the early loot drops includes a bag of marbles, so lots of people try to pay us in them. Bags of marbles are also good for bashing in giant ant heads. But anyways, yeah. My name is Nikki. I live on lvl 93 of the Doom Dungeon, where I run a burger shack. We also have ice cream. Because health potions are all well and good, but after being on a murderous rampage for a couple months or so, what everyone wants is something they can sink their teeth into (and don¡¯t have to cook themselves). I was reincarnated into a catgirl here twenty cycles ago. Apparently catgirls are the only thing safe from being instantly murderized by dungeon crawlers. Which makes sense, if you think about it. There are a couple shops here on lvl 93. It¡¯s the last ¡°safe¡± floor before the big run to the finish. On lvl 100 is a big green button that resets everything and one back to zero. Except us, because why bother with the help, right? I¡¯ve made so many burgers and fries that I¡¯m now a lvl 100 chef, yay me. Mika, who runs the armor repair shop, is a lvl 100 blacksmith. Kimi, who sells the armor which needs to be repaired, is a lvl 100 merchant. She also sells potions. Aya, the information broker and announcer to our marble games, is a lvl 100 spy. Lilly, who can level up spells and give people new ones, is a lvl 100 mage. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. And then there¡¯s Dorothy. We¡­ We don¡¯t talk about Dorothy. So yep, that¡¯s our little club! Or, group-of-people-being-held-here-against-our-will. Same difference. We tried to break out once, on the first cycle when we¡¯d been sitting around for a couple weeks and the most interesting thing to have happened was when a rock fell in Aya¡¯s ear and we spent a full day trying to get it out without damaging her brain or something. Cat ears are weird. Those were the dark days, before we discovered the magic of marble racing. There are going to be a hundred cycles, in order to find the top five best dungeon crawlers of all time, who will then be sent off to do who knows what. If it means getting off this floor, I don¡¯t care what happens next. The current cycle (21) has been going on for about a month, my marble (Momo) is in second place in the standings, and we expect the first of the players to be here any day now. Kimi had journals added into her inventory this morning, so of course we all got one. Mine is covered in lime green glitter, because my color is lime green. The icon in the shop is just plain black, tho, so that¡¯s kinda¡­ disappointing¡­ I¡¯d like something I own to not be lime green. Oh well. At least us being color-coded makes there be no arguments in the marble races about which marble is whose. Anyways, that¡¯s all for now. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 21 (1) Dear diary: Wait I didn¡¯t do that last time. Heck. Oh well. The first of the players got here today!! That¡¯s always an exciting time, since, y¡¯no, it means we actually get to do something. It was a half-orc named Ox. I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯ve seen that name before, but I don¡¯t remember a half-orc having it. Maybe the Admins are allowing people to change races at the start of each cycle. It would be fun to be something else for a while, but I doubt it would be allowed. Unless we all asked to change into something else, then maybe. But it would have to be something cute, like a fairy, or a DD-cupped elf with an extreme form of textile dermatitis. There isn¡¯t a specific stat to change cup size, tho. Kimi looked into it once. Not even a potion will do it, altho there is a gender-swap potion (because of course there is), that will always give people DD-cups when they¡¯re turned female. Altho taking two in a row doesn¡¯t change anything, which feels like a rip-off. Or at least Kimi thought it was a rip-off. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Anyways, yeah. Ox came, and had a double bacon burger with extra fries and a strawberry milkshake. There¡¯s always a type of people who have strawberry milkshakes, y¡¯no? Like, nothing against them, but they¡¯re always¡­ They¡¯re kinda full of themselves. And I get that Ox, being the first one here, has a reason to be full of himself, but ordering strawberry just sealed it. The marble racing tournament has ended. Aya won the last race, which for some reason is important, but my Momo got the championship silver. Lilly won gold. This, of course, means that we can¡¯t be friends until the start of the next cycle. Thankfully I don¡¯t need spells. One cycle I got gold and Kimi got silver; that was hard. But traditions must be upheld. Ox is staying at the inn tonight, we¡¯ll see if he¡¯s going to wait a few days before continuing on. Historically, solo players can¡¯t defeat the 97th level. It¡¯s sort of the great equalizer for the top ten or so. And dying there puts them back at like lvl 85 or something, with all the monsters respawned. He¡¯s been here before, so he should know about¡­ Dorothy¡­ and be fine. Some people prefer to sleep in their camping bags, near the gate. I don¡¯t blame them. I would too, if I didn¡¯t have an apartment above my restaurant, rather than deal with¡­ that¡­ But! More people should be coming soon, which means more stuff to do! And the more stuff we do, the more marbles we collect. Yay marbles! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 21 (2) Dear Diary: Wait, last time I didn¡¯t capitalize diary. Curses. I might have to carefully remove these first few pages, to hide the fact that I haven¡¯t quite figured out how to start it all yet. Anyways. A group arrived, and Ox went with them. Groups always confuse me slightly. I mean, it makes sense in a way; more people to defeat monsters, so less of a chance you¡¯ll be knocked back by dying. On the other hand, the win goes to a single player, with only the top three getting any ranking at all, so if you¡¯re in a group of five¡­ two of you are screwed. Some people try to overcome that with the Power of Friendship. Turns out, according to the Admin, Friendship is, in fact, not magic. Rules are rules, no matter how close you and your pals are. And the rules dictate that I am the best chef in this whole darn place. Why is that? Is it because I was a five-star chef in my old life? Heck no, I worked at Target. It¡¯s because grinding is a thing, and my burgers are high quality. I started out at lvl 20, the minimum required to make the food I¡¯m required to make, and spent basically the whole first cycle doing nothing but making hamburgers and fries. Isn¡¯t it kinda confusing that my stat thing is lvl 100, but the dungeon floors are also called levels? So I¡¯m at lvl 100 but also stuck at lvl 93. I feel like whoever made this thing didn¡¯t think this through. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Oh well. No use crying over things I have no power to change. I tried that once, nothing happened. There still isn¡¯t a mint flavored milkshake option. Which is dumb, because my color is green, so I should be able to make green drinks. Right?! Anyways, one of the guys in the group that came through tried to get Mika to go on a date with him (which was romantic), but he offered her a red rose. Like, her color is blue!! Kimi¡¯s color is red. How can you even mix those up?? So clearly she rejected him, and he was all pouty after that. He ordered three plates of fries and a chocolate milkshake and told me all about it. I didn¡¯t tell him what an idiot he was, because from the looks of him we won¡¯t see him again any time soon. Maybe he¡¯ll forget it happened. Oh yeah, and a hobgoblin broke into our floor! He came from lvl 92, so he was pretty strong, but we¡¯re all higher level than he was (even if it was just at cooking). It took like half an hour of throwing things at him to make him die. He dropped a pretty rare sword, tho, and Mika said she was going to start practicing with it in case anything ever came through again. Oh, I should add that this all happened after the group was gone, so we couldn¡¯t ask them for help. It was fun tho. I wouldn¡¯t mind if it happened again. That¡¯s about all that happened today. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 21 (3) Dear Diary: Ha! I made it the same opening as last time! So, a couple days have passed. A lot more people started coming through. We¡¯re getting so many more marbles! Sure, there¡¯s gold currency in this dungeon, but by preferring marbles over every other form of payment it adds to our Kawai stat, and if we get that up to lvl100 people will do literally anything for us. I¡¯m currently at lvl 51. Aya is in the lead, at lvl 69. Oh, let me draw my stat box! That way I can look back in like twenty cycles or whatever and see where I was when I started this thing.
Health: 85 Stamina:70 This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Wisdom: 42 Intelligence: 44 Charisma: 91 Kawaii: 52 Strength: 75 Dexterity: 89 Spellcasting: 18
Those are the main ones. Then there are skills, like Cooking and Fire Resistance, and every magic spell has its own level. Obviously I''m at lvl 100 with cooking. Fire Resistance is at 26. And I know I should probably make it go up, but I have fur, so it¡¯s naturally low. I mean, do you have any clue how many times I accidentally set my arm on fire during those first few cycles? A lot! Enough to make my Kawaii go down one!! Which was, like, super bad! Having a tail is fun and al, but at first it was hard to keep track of. Plus it''s super fluffy, so just getting it near fire would make it sizzle. Cat ears were easier to get used to. All I had to do was figure out how to brush my hair around them. I don''t know if it was easier for me, since I got short hair, or Aya, who got stupid long hair. At least hers can''t stick up in random directions. And the other fur, like on my arms and body, that was easy. It''s pretty much the same as any other arm hair, just thicker. From a distance it almost looks like skin. Anyways, I think a group of players just got to this level. I¡¯m gonna go see if they need food. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 21 (4) Dear Diary: Ok so, Ox, the first guy here this cycle, just passed through again. Apparently the group he joined betrayed him, and fed him to a dragon on lvl97. He¡¯s suuuuuuuper pissed, since there goes his chance at winning this cycle. But, that means that the group has passed lvl97. It should only be a day or so before the cycle restarts. It¡¯s always interesting to watch a new cycle start. An alert gets sent to everyone from the Admin, saying someone won, and that the cycle will now restart. Out of the thousand or so dungeon crawlers, only the players who have gotten to lvl 95 at least once retain their memories. So they get to start the next cycle with a little bit of a boost. And then they all vanish, and we¡¯re stuck here, alone with our marbles, until the players work their way down again. On the plus side, I¡¯d probably never win, so I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t have to fight to lose. Dorothy did¡­ that thing¡­ again. But we don¡¯t talk about Dorothy. It just kinda sucks that she¡¯s stuck here with us. I mean, just whyyyyy. I wonder how the cycle change will affect this book. Because most things are set back to zero, like the friers and anvils and clothes, but I don¡¯t think anyone has tried keeping a diary before. Maybe all the words will just poof, which would honestly kinda suck. Because what¡¯s the point of a diary if you can¡¯t read it five years from now and laugh at the stupidity of your younger self? Y¡¯no? This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Well, I¡¯ll find out in a couple days, I guess. Until then, I¡¯m going to keep working on finding something similar to mint flavor for my ice cream so that I can finally make mint milkshakes. I was given an ¡°assortment pack¡± of herbs (a lady came through who just collected all the plants and herbs found in the dungeon, and she gave me some of each), and I¡¯ve been going through them to see if any are mint. So far, a couple are spicy, one is lemony, a couple are pretty relaxing, and one made me think that my tail had grown a face and was trying to talk to me. That was an interesting couple of hours. I made a note of the name in case anyone has more. The other girls have got to try it. But so far no mint. Not even, like, spearmint. Or peppermint. Granted, I¡¯ve only tried like a dozen out of sixty, so there could absolutely be a mint in there somewhere. I put some of the spicy ones into my burgers, and people said that it was good, which is nice. It¡¯s always nice to try something new and have people tell you it¡¯s good. It¡¯s like, validation or something. Yeah I¡¯m lvl 100 at cooking, but that¡¯s just what a system says. To have real live people tell me I¡¯m good at it is way better. I do wish I had more ingredients, tho. I would kill to be able to make a pizza. ¡­Actually¡­ Yeah, I might be able to. I¡¯m gonna go see if I can make a pizza! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (1) Dear Diary, So, a couple things have happened since my last entry. First, I discovered that I couldn¡¯t make pizza with the things available to me. Second, I found something close enough to mint that I could make mint ice cream. Third, someone pushed the button on lvl 100 and reset the dungeon. Fourth, I got pizza added onto my menu!!! And two new flavors of ice cream: caramel and mint!!! So I can make mint milkshakes now! Woo! And fifth, I guess, I found out that this book, being in my inventory when the cycle started, didn¡¯t have anything erased from it. Yay! Anyways, a new cycle mostly means one thing: a new marble racing tournament. I have nearly two hundred new marbles to try out! Aya and Lilly both got close to four hundred marbles, while Mika and Kimi barely got three hundred between them. Apparently there was a new type of ore introduced last cycle, so they mostly took payment in that. Well, it¡¯ll take them a couple days to get the prelim race track set up for everyone to test our new marbles, so in the meantime I¡¯m going to be experimenting with pizza toppings. I only get a set list of ingredients, but in basically unlimited quantity. So I can put the burger toppings on pizza, no worries. If anyone wants onions, tomatoes, cheddar, bacon or pickles (eww) on their pizza, I can make that happen! This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Conversely, if anyone wants mozzarella, ham, pineapple, pepperoni or anchovies (eww) on their burger, I can make that happen, too. I¡¯ll have to make a wish list of ingredients to send to the Admin. Well, I say ¡°send¡±, I mean ¡°tack on my wall near the restaurant counter for lots of people to see and wish they had¡±. If enough people want it, the Admin usually provides. Like fire swords. Fire swords weren¡¯t a thing the first cycle, and like everyone asked for a sword that had cool flames on it when they passed lvl 50 or so. Second cycle, bam. Fire swords available at the lvl 55 Catgirl Shop. Yeah, apparently there are ten floors dedicated to catgirls and their shops. I wish I could meet them. Sometimes I wonder if each floor has their own Dorothy, or if some floors everyone gets along well. I wonder what they do, since as amazing as marble racing is, I doubt everyone does it. I wonder if we¡¯ll ever meet. Probably not. Oh well. I¡¯m happy here. And devil you know, y¡¯no? Best not to wonder about it too hard, in case the Admin decides to send me somewhere else and I hate it. Oh, Kimi tried to change race when the cycle reset. It didn¡¯t work. She¡¯s pretty bummed about it, so I¡¯m going to make her an ice cream cake to cheer her up. I¡¯d like to make a real cake, but no ingredients for it. Oh well, ice cream cakes are pretty yummy, even without any cake in it. It¡­ it¡¯s basically just a tub of multi flavored ice cream. With whipped cream as frosting. Not the most exciting thing, but who cares. Oh, one bonus to being a catgirl in a dungeon is, we can¡¯t gain weight! Nope, our weight has been predetermined, and it will stay that way if we only eat fries or if we don¡¯t eat anything at all! It can¡¯t possibly be a healthy mentality, but not worrying about weight at all is¡­ nice, I guess. Anyways, I have a full day of pizza making tomorrow, so I¡¯d better head to sleep. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (2) Dear Diary, Another hobgoblin broke in, and tried to attack us. Thankfully he didn¡¯t try to attack the marble track, or it would have meant war. I¡­ actually gained XP for helping kill it. I wasn¡¯t expecting that, since I¡¯m not a player. Mika got the most XP, since she dealt the killing blow, and has been pretty thoughtful all day. Pretty sure she¡¯s planning something, but not sure what. Anyways, my pizza experiments are coming along nicely. I need an herb garden or something, to add different flavors to the sauce and bread. We don¡¯t strictly need to eat, but it¡¯s a habit. Plus I have to make sure things I make taste good for my customers. I mean, what kind of chef doesn¡¯t taste her food to make sure it¡¯s actually edible? ...Sorry, I had to leave for a bit. Wait, why am I apologizing to a book? You don¡¯t feel the passage of time. Or do you? Aaaanyways, the prelim marble track is ready! Lilly won last cycle, so this time she gets to test her marbles first. She decided to do the first batch tonight. I¡¯ll get to do mine tomorrow afternoon, since I got silver. Now that a new marble tournament is underway, Lilly and I are friends again. That¡¯s nice. I like it when we¡¯re all friends. Which, should be obvious, but some people just don¡¯t like having friends. Like ...Dorothy. She could join the marble tournament if she wanted to, but she doesn¡¯t want to. I¡¯m not even sure she has marbles. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. But we don¡¯t talk about Dorothy. What we do talk about is the fact that Kimi got jewelry in her shop! Sure, Mika could always make jewelry, but being able to straight-up buy necklaces and stuff is super nice. The selection isn¡¯t all that exciting, just gold, silver or copper chains, and they don¡¯t do anything magical, but they exist. And, since they¡¯re metal, they don¡¯t change color the instant they come into our possession! You have no clue how much of a relief that is until you¡¯ve spent nearly two years of having everything you touch turn green. The worst part is, I didn¡¯t choose green as my color. Like, if I¡¯d had a choice, and had decided that I wanted to be the green one, I¡¯d be fine with this. Because it was my decision. But nope, green was the color assigned to me. It¡¯s those little things that make the difference in life, y¡¯no? Probably not, because you¡¯re just a notebook. Sometimes I think that keeping a diary is really dumb. But, I don¡¯t know, it feels good in a way. Since our group is so small, there¡¯s no one to really talk to about them. Maybe I should do that, spend one whole diary entry talking about each of the girls. Or not. That would be mean. Maybe. I don¡¯t know. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (3) Dear Diary, Important things first: after a long, hard battle, where many good marbles raced to exhaustion, battling for supremacy, one marble out of the new batch stood alone at the end of the day. He¡¯ll be given two day¡¯s respite, and then will fight between twenty other marbles for the honor of representing my team in the tournament this cycle. (Look, I¡¯m fully aware of how dumb this sounds, it¡¯s hekkin¡¯ marbles, but there is seriously nothing better for us to spend our time on. Sad as it is, marbles is life.) Now that that¡¯s out of the way, I can tell you about Mika¡¯s plan. See, way back in cycle 1, when we tried getting out, we went up. And that was absolutely, completely not allowed. But we never tried going down. So maybe we should try it? I mean, the hobgoblin managed it. ¡­And then had the crap beaten out of him by a group of catgirls, but that¡¯s not the point. The point is, he went solo, while we¡¯re a team. From player gossip, we know a couple things. 1, the reset point for if you die is lvl 85. 2, lvl 97 is stupid hard. Apparently there¡¯s a whole army of decently-leveled kobolds there, protecting a dragon. 3, things that spawned into a level will respawn there once the thing that killed them is out. 4, to get through a level, you don¡¯t have to clear it, just pass through the next door. However, the main goal of monsters in any given level is to stop that door from opening. 5, I got distracted and don¡¯t remember what I was going to write next. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Anyways, Aya thinks that if we die a level down, we¡¯ll respawn here, while Kimi thinks we¡¯ll respawn on lvl 85, and I think we should ask the hobgoblin where he respawns, if he comes down again. Which I think he will. Oh! Right! 5, we should, with enough determination, be able to get to lvl 100. And once we¡¯re there, we could push the reset button. And then¡­ what would happen? Maybe, just maybe, we could win. ¡­ In all probability, the Admin would stop us. He¡¯d find some way of making it impossible for us to get off this floor again. But, like, we could try. It¡¯s worth that much, right? And, I know that there are five of us, so only three can win, but¡­ I don¡¯t know. Even if I¡¯m not one of the winners, I don¡¯t care. Like, I wasn¡¯t given a choice to be here. I wasn¡¯t given a choice to be a catgirl, or to be the green one. I wasn¡¯t given a choice in job, which is why it¡¯s super lucky that I¡¯ve always liked cooking. So I don¡¯t care how dangerous or stupid this might be. If it means I¡¯m doing something that I want to do, because I think it will be fun, and I make the choice to do it¡­ I¡¯m doing it. No matter what. Goodnight, dungeon. I¡¯m coming for ya.
Cycle 22 (4) Dear Diary, As I suspected, the hobgoblin came down again today. I mean, I didn¡¯t suspect he¡¯d come today, just that he¡¯d come. His name is Staab. With two A¡¯s. He was very specific about that. He said that he was bored with sitting in the same spot waiting to die repeatedly, and wanted to explore. He was hoping we¡¯d stop freaking out about him passing through if he could just get us to listen. Which¡­ we apologized for freaking out. Apparently going back up through levels is impossible for everyone, including players. The only way to go back is to die, at which point it¡¯ll respawn you back at a predetermined location. But going down is possible for everyone. We put a pause on our marble races and went to the big ornate doors heading down. All I¡¯d known before today was that it led to a stairway. Now I know that it has an invisible barrier five feet high that stops anyone except players from crossing. Fortunately for us, the doors arch up, cathedral-style, to twelve feet high. So all we had to do was climb to the top and swing through. With claws, this was a piece of cake. Kimi is going to provide a ladder for next time. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Anyways, the stairs are just stone with stone walls, and it¡¯s like a fifteen minute walk down to the next level. And holy crap. It¡¯s amazing. The whole floor is a forest, lit like twilight. Light enough to see, but dark enough that all the colors are muted. We didn¡¯t get to see all of it, because there¡¯s a pack of dire wolves there that attacked us like three minutes after we stepped through the door. Turns out, we respawn in the middle of our bedrooms. Which is nice, because dying is painful and I needed to scream into a pillow for a couple minutes after that. Having had my arm ripped off by a wolf doesn¡¯t seem to have left a mark. My arm is back, with no scars or anything. I gained a point in pain resistance, so that¡¯s nice, I guess. Next time it won¡¯t be as painful? And yeah, there will be a next time. Aya really wants to go, and since she¡¯s more or less the driving force here, we do what she says. She isn¡¯t really the leader, because we all do our own thing and don¡¯t need a leader, but sometimes she gets this look on her face and we know that whatever she says next, we¡¯ll be doing. It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s one of the reasons I really like this group. Anyways, Aya said we need to try to make friends with the wolves. Staab says it won¡¯t work, but I think it might. So I spent the rest of the day making fist-sized spiceless meatballs, and tomorrow morning we¡¯ll go down and try feeding the doggos. I gotta say, if we managed to make friends with them, that would be epic. I don¡¯t think they can talk, since they¡¯re just wolves, but we¡¯ll find out. Lilly was the last one to die, and she says there were six of them. So that¡¯s cool. Anyways, I¡¯m tired from cooking all day, and have a big day tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (5) Wolf ears perked up as they each heard a faint ding. There were intruders in their forest. As one, they ran to the door. A colorful group of humanoids stood there, the two in front holding a large bag. Fear radiated off them, almost as strong as the meat scent emanating from the bag. Upon seeing the dire wolves, they upended the bag. Dozens of meatballs fell out, landing in a pile on the forest floor. The wolf leader slowed, suspicious. Behind him, the pack pawed the ground and sniffed the air, not sure what to do. The leader moved forwards slowly, teeth bared and hackles raised. The colorful group moved back, watching. A meatball rolled off the pile, landing at the leader¡¯s paws. He sniffed it, not taking his eyes off the humanoids. It smelled like meat and water, with no trace of potions or poisons. With an air that said ¡°if this is bad, you will die¡±, he stuck out his tongue and flicked it into his mouth. It¡­ was delicious. He dove for the pile, biting into as many as possible as his pack jumped forwards to join him. They tore through the meatballs, barely swallowing before grabbing another one. It was barely half a minute before all the meat was gone, leaving them licking the ground. The leader sat back, contentedly licking his chops. And remembered something. He barked, and his pack looked up at him. There were still intruders in the forest. Intruders were bad. Intruders brought pain. They had to defend their territory from pain bringers, even if they also brought food. The pack remembered and growled, turning towards the other door. Death to the pain bringers. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Dear Diary, So, the dire wolves liked my food. Which was good. But they didn¡¯t like it enough to not attack us when they¡¯d finished eating it. We took a vote on what to do; keep feeding them in the hopes that they¡¯d become our friends, or give up and figure out how to fight them. And, since Staab is a part of our group as far as traveling down goes, it was a tie. We compromised on this: we¡¯d try food giving for the next week, trying every morning. If it didn¡¯t seem to be working, we¡¯d deck ourselves out in armor and swords, and go through the old-fashioned way. I don¡¯t really like fighting. Not that I¡¯m a pacifist or anything, I just personally don¡¯t like causing pain or being in pain. I mentioned this, and Lilly said she thought I would make a good healer. I like the idea of that; learning spells and buying potions to help people. I might even be able to put the potions into my cooking, so that instead of just chugging a mystery vial, someone could eat a cookie and gain health. If I had cookies. I¡¯ll have to try making more desserts. I¡¯m not really that much of a ¡°sweets¡± person, I always preferred potato chips to oreos, but after so much time with only milkshakes, I kinda really want a snickerdoodle, y¡¯no? Heck, I¡¯d take the most basic of chocolate cakes at this point, because there¡¯s so much I could do with flour, eggs and milk. Anyways, in other news, Mika and Kimi finished their marble choosing races, meaning after Aya does hers tomorrow we can move on with the prelims. We were kinda worried that spending so much time on exploring and making friends with dire wolves we wouldn¡¯t have time for our marble tournament, but no one really wants to die more than once a day, so yeah. We go down there first thing in the morning, and are back by ten. I suppose that if we make it further and further down it¡¯ll take longer, but I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll ever be back after noon. That still leaves us with plenty of time to make tracks and race. Usually only Mika and Kimi make the actual tracks we use, leaving the rest of us to do whatever we find to do, but honestly it¡¯s never anything important, so this time everyone is going to help out. That should make building the tracks faster. And Mika said she could save the tracks in pieces, instead of melting them down like she usually does, so next cycle she wouldn¡¯t have to mould and form each track individually. It would only be a question of assembling them. We told Staab about our marble tournament, and he thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Which, yeah, I see that. So we asked what his life was like, and apparently lvl92 is a lava level! He lives in a little hut alongside a river of molten lava. There are three other hobgoblins and a dozen ghosts that also live there, so they mostly play cards. Except a lot of times they drop cards in the lava, and so have to play with incomplete decks. He says it¡¯s pretty boring, but the other hobgoblins like it, and didn¡¯t want to come explore. Their loss. Well, that¡¯s all for now. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (6) Dear Diary, Well, it took four days, but the wolves didn¡¯t attack us today! Success! They still clearly don¡¯t like us, but they didn¡¯t attack us when we went to the next door. And that¡¯s all we wanted. Level 95 is a water level. There aren¡¯t any boats or rafts available, which kinda really sucked. I guess at lvl95 everyone already has some kind of floating thing. Well, we didn¡¯t. So we just started swimming. And that¡¯s when we found out that sharks are a thing. And Aya says that a kraken lives down there, too. I don¡¯t think that we¡¯ll be able to make friends with sharks the same way we made friends with the dire wolves. So tomorrow we¡¯ll be crossing in the cheapest of rafts available in Kimi¡¯s shop. Honestly, no one expects the raft to survive. But we need to find out what kind of things our floaty thing will have to go up against, and while we have a decent amount of cash we don¡¯t have an infinite supply. Staab is getting used to us. He¡¯s becoming super sarcastic and dry. Kimi tried to flirt with him, and his reply was ¡°Just¡­ No.¡± which was hilarious. She isn¡¯t going to take that as a challenge or anything, she isn¡¯t like that. But the rest of us might. We haven¡¯t decided yet. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The marble races continue on. It¡¯s too early to say how things are going to shape up, which is good because I¡¯m in dead last. Mimo, my marble this cycle, has completely failed to even get bronze in any race so far. I might switch him out if he doesn¡¯t get a medal tomorrow. I mean, I know that the first couple races are hard, everyone is sizing up the competition and getting their stride, but this is just sad. I don¡¯t know why I call all my marbles ¡°he¡±. Lilly calls all hers ¡°she¡±, Aya calls hers ¡°they¡±, Mika switches it up, and Kimi claims to be the only sane one because she calls hers ¡°it¡±. I mean, we all know they¡¯re just marbles, and they can¡¯t think or anything, but it¡¯s fun to pretend. Like when little kids invent personalities for all their toys. In a way they know that the toys aren¡¯t alive, and it¡¯s all pretend, but they¡¯d never in a million years admit that out loud. What makes it even funnier to me is, before we touch them, all the marbles are cat eyes. There are like twenty different colors, all mixed together. But as soon as we take them, they become a solid color, depending on what our color is. It¡¯s weird to see it happen, have them all transform as they¡¯re being handed to me, but that¡¯s just the way things are. Everything I own has to be green. And not just semi-green, no, GREEN green. Oh, in case you were wondering, dear unsapient notebook¡­ Kimi is red, Mika is blue, Aya is yellow, and Lilly is purple. Well, she says lilac, but it¡¯s purple. And¡­ Dorothy is... grey. Yeah, grey. ...Grey... Anyways, the meatballs for the wolves tomorrow are done, so I have to go take them off the stove and drain them. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (7) Dear Diary, So, turns out that oak isn¡¯t strong enough to survive a chomp by a shark. Shocking. It also isn¡¯t strong enough to withstand a kraken tentacle going straight through the middle of it. We made it about twenty feet away from the entrance before the kraken attacked. Aya thinks that solo swimmers agro sharks, while floaty things will agro the kraken. Which makes sense. And yeah, I say ¡°floaty thing¡±, because it could be a raft or boat or cauldron or ship or inner tube or whatever. As long as it is floating, and not made of people, it¡¯s gonna agro the kraken. There isn¡¯t anything in Kimi¡¯s store that is kraken-proof. We have the option of buying the strongest thing available, and then adding more things to it to make it as strong as possible, but everyone agrees that this will probably take tactics rather than brute force. One thing we¡¯ve been looking into is teleportation. We know close to where the agro point for the kraken is, so if we teleport from there to as close to the next door as we can, it might be enough to save us from having the raft destroyed. Maybe. Another thing might be a flight potion. Altho the flight potions have a cap of thirty seconds. Maybe a mixture of teleportation and flight? Teleportation, being a spell, has a range that gets minutely larger each time an individual uses it. Lilly never really used it, so even though she¡¯s a lvl100 wizard, her range isn¡¯t all that good. I think they¡¯re going to make me practice with it, since I don¡¯t want to fight. That way Lilly can start practicing with lightning bolts or whatever it is she prefers. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Honestly, I never really had an interest in magic before now. I mean, sure, I have basic telekinesis and prestidigitation, because who wouldn¡¯t want to be able to clean the house while laying on the couch? But other than that, nah. My job is cooking, and my passion is marble racing. Neither of those use magic. So after the first cycle I didn¡¯t bother keeping up with whatever spells Lilly got. Speaking of marble races, my marble Mimo won gold! Finally! I won¡¯t replace him. Hopefully he was just getting all the losses out in the first couple runs, so now he¡¯ll be a solid medalist. Mika has been making the tracks extra sturdy, and realizes that she might run out of spare metal before we¡¯re done racing, so she¡¯s asked us to donate any we have. I don¡¯t have a lot, since I don¡¯t have a use for metal, but on occasion someone will try to pay me in old armor or whatever, so I have a few things. People offer to pay me with all sorts of things. One time someone offered me a bag of teeth, and was super mad when I said no. Since I don¡¯t have to pay for ingredients, I can accept literally anything in payment. We all can, really; only things in Kimi¡¯s shop insists that the trade be fair. Lilly likes to be paid in flowers, and one time took a single daisy in exchange for like a lvl50 spell upgrade. When we buy things from Kimi¡¯s shop we like to pay in actual money, but mostly because we don¡¯t have any other real use for money. Anyways, I¡¯m tired. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (8) Deep in the cold depths of her sea, the kraken slept. She liked sleeping. Giant creatures such as herself preferred not to move much, only stirring when it was needed. Sharks of various species swam above her, a complicated and beautiful dance through the water. What they thought, or what they wanted, she didn¡¯t know. All she knew about them was that they were at peace. The sea was at peace. DONG. That sound. It filled the kraken with a rage unlike anything else. It reverberated through the water, bringing chaos to her sea. It angered the sharks. It stopped the dance; broke the peace. It heralded smaller creatures, at the surface of the water, who always caused havoc. Why. Why were they here now? Usually she had a full month of peaceful repose before they came and destroyed the balance of the sea. They had to die. They deserved to die. This was her sea, and they were making things Not Right. All she wanted was to be left alone, was that so much to ask? A giant arm shot up, reaching towards the square on the surface, helpfully circled by the sharks. The disrupters would die. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Dear Diary: Yeahhhhhhhh I need to work on my teleportation. At the moment I can only teleport the group about twenty feet. Which would be good in normal circumstances, but the kraken¡¯s tentacles are like thirty feet long. It makes me wonder how deep the water is, and makes me nervous since I don¡¯t really know how to swim. I mean, not that I¡¯d want to swim in there anyways, since sharks. We also tried flight potions. Using both things combined, we managed to almost get halfway to the door before all dying. Lilly died way before that, tho, since apparently sharks can jump. That was¡­ erm¡­ interesting to learn. I don''t think we''ll be using the flight potions again, since they''re kinda expensive and not very helpful. The dire wolves were almost friendly to us today. One started wagging his tail at us, but then the leader was like ¡°no¡± (but in wolf) and he stopped. It was kinda cute, actually. Aya saw it, and thinks that maybe eventually they might be our friends. Having a giant wolf friend would be the most epic thing in the history of epic things. The only thing I¡¯d worry about, in that case, would be that they start thinking everyone who came through the door was their friend. And when the players start coming through and killing them, their trust in us would be completely ruined. Or¡­ Maybe Aya could tell people that if they take meatballs to the wolves, they won¡¯t have to fight them. She is the one with all the tips and tricks on how to beat monsters, after all. So if the wolves could learn that people with meatballs are friends, while people without meatballs are enemies, that would be perfect. Something to think about, for the future. But for now, I¡¯m gonna go teleport until I pass out. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (9) Dear Diary, We almost had it. We¡¯d come up with a plan that was so smart and ingenious, that we thought for sure it would work. We found a potion of wallclimbing in Kimi¡¯s shop. Since all the sharks are in the water, they shouldn¡¯t have been able to reach the ceiling, right? Right? Well, almost right. It took them a couple minutes to figure out how far to launch themselves out of the water to be able to grab us. Let me tell you, seeing a shark faceplant into a cavern ceiling a few inches away from you is equal parts terrifying and freaking hilarious. Other than yeeting sharks, we had the issue of kraken tentacles to deal with. What they lacked in finesse they made up for with annoyed flailing. And then, when it was down to Mika and me, we found out that the ten-minute timer on the potion is not nearly long enough to get us to the other door. We fell into the water, and were promptly eaten by sharks. So, our plan for tomorrow is this: 1, take the cheap raft to the edge of kraken agro area. 2, teleport as far as I can manage, landing us next to a wall. 3, chug wallclimbing potions, and run as fast as we can for the door. 4, as soon as I can teleport again, grab everyone and do so. Hopefully that will get us to the door. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. It¡¯s kinda complicated, but it might work. One thing I¡¯m hopeful about is, our stats don¡¯t reset when the cycle does. Player stats get knocked down by 4/5ths, so that they don¡¯t become OP, but they feel like they aren¡¯t losing absolutely everything on a reset. We aren''t players, so that¡¯s how we have lvl100 in so many things. After a cycle or two, I might be able to just teleport everyone straight across the whole floor. It¡¯s OP, sure, but no one is meant to get that high a level. At least, not if they want to win. Other than that, the marble race today was stupid close. Usually everything stretches out, until one marble is the clear winner. But today, Mimo was in the lead, and then in the very last section bounced off the walls a couple times while Razzy (Kimi¡¯s marble) went straight down. They got to the finish line at the same time. We don¡¯t have a camera or anything to get a photo finish with, so it devolved into an argument about who had won. Finally we decided to run a tiebreaker lap, and Mimo won. Kimi is still slightly annoyed, but I made her food and that calmed her down. It¡¯s not the first time we¡¯ve fought, but it was the first true argument Staab has seen us get into (yes, he¡¯s still around, he basically lives here now), and I think it kinda scared him. Like, we¡¯re usually a pretty cheerful group of, well, catgirls. We can be serious, but he¡¯s never seen any of us angry. And to be angry over a silly little marble race¡­ Yeah, it spooked him. Maybe I should make him food, too. Tell him we¡¯re still friends. I¡¯ll go do that. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (10) Dear Diary, Well, we¡¯re getting closer to the other door. The problem is, the faster we get, the faster the sharks get, too. It¡¯s been almost a week, and we think that in another two days we¡¯ll make it. Another problem is, we don¡¯t always all make it. And we want to all be there when we go to the next level. So instead of going down, for the next two days I¡¯ll just be 100% focused on practicing teleportation. I have to admit that it¡¯ll be nice to take a break. Mika will be spending the vacation time making marble tracks, Lilly will be upgrading wallclimbing potions, and Staab will be catching up with his friends in lvl92. And Aya and Kimi will be playing with the dire wolves. The wolves really like us now. If they could come up a level, we¡¯d totally make them our pets. Today one of them followed us to lvl95, which was super cute, but then she got eaten by a shark because we couldn¡¯t get her to drink the wallclimbing potion. I don¡¯t think she¡¯ll try following us again any time soon. Besides, I don¡¯t really want them to fight, and we¡¯re pretty sure that at lvl97 we¡¯ll have to fight. We might have to fight at lvl96, too, Aya isn¡¯t sure. Apparently it¡¯s a maze thing filled with slimes. She says that slimes don¡¯t think, so they don¡¯t really fight fight, but they fill the corridor and basically kill anything that tries to get through. I don¡¯t like slimy things. Slime is gross. I¡¯m not looking forwards to fighting a slime. But going through a maze sounds fun. When I was little I always loved corn mazes and things like that. Of course, corn mazes usually don¡¯t have things in them that could kill you. Not directly, at least. I¡¯ll be taking my notebook down for the first couple times, to draw out the pathways, until we have it memorized. Or maybe not my notebook, because I like my notebook and don¡¯t want to lose it if I die. When we go down, we don¡¯t have anything in our inventories because we don¡¯t want to lose anything. When a player dies, half of their inventory gets left behind in that spot. We aren¡¯t players, so we¡¯re not sure if we would drop anything from our inventories or not. Actually¡­ Be right back. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. intermission Ok! So, we now know (thanks to a poisoned milkshake), that when we die we don¡¯t lose anything from our inventories. We drop 30 gold and ten candies (of our color) that restore 20HP each. Also, Mika is super mad at Lilly and me for testing it on her. I mean, the poison was instant, and if we¡¯d told her ¡°hey, try this poisoned milkshake so we can see if you drop anything when you die¡± that probably wouldn¡¯t have worked out too well. Lilly agreed it was important to learn, so the blame isn¡¯t all mine. I made the milkshake, she poisoned it. So yeah. Anyways, now that we know that, that changes a bunch of things. Maybe. Probably. We¡¯ll think it over and see if it does. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (11) Dear Diary, We made it to the door! Finally! It took a day longer than we expected it would, but now that we¡¯ve done it we know it¡¯s possible. I¡¯m kinda pretty proud of myself. I mean, I¡¯m the one doing all the teleporting, so it was basically my job to get strong enough to keep everyone alive. And I did. So, yay me. None of the dire wolves have tried following us again. Which I¡¯m happy about. Maybe, if they like us that much, when I get a high enough teleportation level to get all the way across the sea, we can try taking them with us. But only if it¡¯s safe for them. Which it probably won¡¯t be. Anyways, yep, there are slimes on lvl96. They are slimy, and gross. They are also made out of some kind of acid which is stupidly painful. Like, I thought being eaten by a shark was painful. NOPE! Shark bites are nothing to the feeling of having the flesh melt off your bones. We have to find a way through this maze FAST because I do not want to deal with them for as long as we dealt with the sharks. I mean, at least the sharks are kinda fun. It¡¯s a race. And seeing them faceplant on the ceiling is still hilarious. But there is absolutely nothing fun or funny about the slimes. At the moment, I¡¯m not fighting. I have a low-level healing spell, healing potions, and the teleportation spell. Staab, Mika and Kimi have weapons, and do all the melee fighting. Except you can¡¯t melee fight slimes, because they just dissolve swords. And armor. And everything else. So that leaves Lilly and Aya with their attack spells. But, turns out, Lilly has been focusing on learning spells that deal psychic damage, because that stuff is purple. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Slimes don¡¯t have brains. They don¡¯t think. So they are almost completely immune to psychic damage. Aya, being yellow, has a couple lightning and electrical attacks, and those work way better on the slimes. But since she hasn¡¯t been practicing with them, they aren¡¯t strong enough to kill a slime on their own. So tomorrow, Aya is going to practice her spells all day. Mika is going to make three of the best swords she can, and Lilly will enchant them to be acid-resistant. Lilly will also teach Kimi and Mika a basic attack spell (fire bolt for Kimi, ice volley for Mika), so that they aren¡¯t completely useless at range. And while all that is going on, Staab and I will be trying to speed-run the maze to map it out. Joy of joys. I really really don¡¯t want to do that, but I don¡¯t have anything better to do, and it will get me to use teleport and probably heal a bunch of times. Oh, why don¡¯t I just teleport all the way across? Because it¡¯s a maze. So teleporting might land us in a blocked corridor full of slimes. Besides, we don¡¯t know where the door is along the wall. Why not climb up the ceiling? Because the walls of the maze go all the way to the ceiling. And slimes also go to the ceiling. Those things are huge. Anyways, I have a long, painful day ahead of me tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (12) Dear Diary, UGHHHH today was painful. We didn¡¯t get hardly any of the maze mapped out, but we did learn where NOT to go! There¡¯s like a spiral thing, filled with slimes! That¡¯s where Staab went down, so I ran around after that and was dissolved by one that came out of freaking nowhere! And why didn''t I just teleport past it? Because teleporting has a cooldown time, so I can''t just poof past every single one. Plus I can''t see past them, so I might be teleporting myself into a closed corner or something. Basically, it''s safer to not teleport in a maze. Halfway through our trip, as I was mapping out the maze, Staab suggested I mark where the slimes all were, and that was smart. I hope they stay in those spots, but then I have no reason to suppose they move around since they seem to be in dead ends or corners, waiting. Always waiting. OH we also found out, the acid acts differently sometimes! Mm-hmm! It¡¯s not always straight-up pain, no, that would be too easy. Sometimes it¡¯s burney pain, or freezy pain! For that extra level of suck. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I hate slimes. No, hate isn¡¯t a strong enough word. I detest slimes. I abhor them. They are the most revolting, despicable things to exist. I am repugnated by these loathsome beings. They are abominations whose souls, should they possess souls, I consign to the deepest layer of Hell. Yeah, that feels about right. I don¡¯t like ¡®em. Anyways, getting passed the sharks felt easier today than yesterday. I think the sharks are starting to give up on us. Maybe. I¡¯m still nowhere near letting the wolves come with us, tho. Oh, Kimi is loving being able to cast fire ball. Teaching her to summon fire with a thought might not have been the smartest thing Lilly has ever done. But it¡¯s better than Mika, who¡­ erm¡­ has trouble aiming. When she fires off her ice volley, the only safe place to be is right behind her. And even then it¡¯s a maybe. Staab said he doesn¡¯t want to learn any magic. He says that magic always feels super weird to him. He described it as oily. Said that holding an enchanted sword felt wrong, too, and asked Mika to hold it for him until he absolutely had to use it. We were all ok with that, but it kinda¡­ I don¡¯t know, it reinforced that he isn¡¯t one of us. Sure, we¡¯re color-coded catgirls, and he¡¯s a typical hobgoblin guy, but we had the same goal and were working together every day. We felt like a team. But now we all know magic, and he doesn¡¯t want to. I hope the feeling goes away soon, because I kinda like having him around. Plus, this whole thing started because of him. It wouldn¡¯t be fair if we left him behind. I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m tired, I need sleep. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (13) Dear Diary, Have I mentioned how much I hate slimes? Because I reeeeeeely hate slimes. We decided to separate to map out the dungeon, because splitting the party is always a great idea. And, to be fair, it worked. Aya and Mika found the door. The rest of us ended up dissolved by slimes. Well, they ended up dissolved by slimes, too, since the only way to get back is to die. But they got dissolved last. Anyways, there are nine slimes between us and the next door. Two of them are fire-resistant, while three of them are ice-resistant. Now that we¡¯ll be going through as a group, with all our magic and enchanted swords, we should be able to kill them fairly easily. If we don¡¯t make it tomorrow, we¡¯ll spend a full day working on our spells, then go at it again. In the group, I''m the one who feels strongest about slimes, but everyone agrees they suck. No one wants to die by them any more times than strictly necessary. Meanwhile, my marble Mimo is back to doing poorly. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be getting any championship medals this cycle. Which, since there are three medals and only five contestants, is kinda super sad. But Staab says he wants to join next year, so there¡¯ll be an even chance at getting a medal, and losing won¡¯t seem quite as depressing. Yay! This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Speaking of Staab, he and Lilly seem to be getting along super well lately. They have the same sense of humor, which is good. Lilly kinda¡­ well, she¡¯s the smartest one in the group. Book-smartest, I mean. Before dying and becoming a catgirl, she was in college to be a teacher, and was learning just about everything. And now she works with spells and magic, which deals with words and phrasing and math. She always thought she was slightly better than the rest of us, especially when she made a joke or reference that flew way over our heads. I don¡¯t know what Staab did before dying, but he gets her references. Right now I think they¡¯re still just friends, but given how often they exchange knowing looks, I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll stay that way long. This is the first romance in the group, so Lilly has alllllll our attention. It¡¯s kinda hard to start a relationship with someone when you only see them once every month and a half or so. Sure, people have flirted with us, but it¡¯s never been anything serious. The only one who flirts back is Kimi. I mostly find it annoying. And in the first cycle we specifically decided there wouldn¡¯t be any relationships between us, because if it ended badly we¡¯d still be stuck together for who knows how long, and we don¡¯t need that kind of drama. But enough about that. I¡¯m gonna focus all my mental energy on telling the universe I need a breakfast menu in the burger shack. Because that would get me (at the very least) eggs, and then I could make souffl¨¦s! Or not, because souffl¨¦s are hekkin hard to make. But I could make a quiche! Quiches are good. And it might get me flour, which I could then use to make cakes. If not flour, then pancake mix, which can still be used in lots of cake-like things. Cooking is fun, don¡¯t judge me. Anyways, it¡¯s late. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (14) The slime waited, motionless and thoughtless. Blorp. An air bubble passed out of the slime. It had a negative effect on the surrounding air. If the slime were capable of emotion, it would feel content. It existed, and this was good. Existing is a positive thing to do. ¡°Is it still there?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t stick your head out like that, you¡¯ll agro it!¡± ¡°Sorry!¡± The vibrations of sound reached the slime. Vibrations were a negative. An instinct was triggered in the slime, to stop the vibrations. It moved towards them. ¡°Crap, it¡¯s moving.¡± ¡°Well, so much for that plan.¡± ¡°Attack!¡± ¡°Finally!¡± ¡°DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!¡± The vibrations became louder, causing the slime to move faster. The vibrations brought with them things which had a negative effect on the slime. The vibrations must be stopped. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Dear Diary, So, we probably would have made it through the maze today. If we hadn¡¯t gotten lost. Turns out, mazes are confusing! It¡¯s almost like they¡¯re designed for people to get lost in or something. We took a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up facing a corner with two slimes in it instead of the door. At that point we kinda gave up, and just ran around screaming. It didn¡¯t help, but it felt good. And hey, we found out that our limit for slime killing in one run is currently eleven. The route we¡¯re supposed to take only has nine slimes on it, so we should be ok! Since we were all feeling kinda down after that, I made everyone burgers with pineapple for lunch. It¡¯s a good combination. After lunch we compared our maps, and found out that Mika is really good at drawing. Actually, she¡¯s the only one of us who can draw a straight line. We were surprised, because she¡¯s never talked about liking to draw before. Kimi said that she buys a lot of paper and pencils, but never really thought to ask why. So we got Mika to show us her art, and holy crap is it good. ¡­And three hours later we remembered we were supposed to be comparing maps, and got back to that. We made Mika look over all our sucky drawings and make a new, good drawing of the maze. We think that we know where we made a wrong turn now, so tomorrow we¡¯ll be good. And then we¡¯ll be at the infamous lvl 97. We¡¯ve decided to try talking to the dragon and kobolds. Since they¡¯re creatures like us, with languages and society and whatever, we might be able to reason with them. Sure, it¡¯s a long shot, but maybe if we ask politely they¡¯ll let us through. I mean, I doubt any of the players have ever asked politely. The dragon might be so impressed that they¡¯ll say yes and let us through! Staab says that if we¡¯d shown up on his floor and asked politely to get through, he would have demanded a toll but wouldn¡¯t have fought. So we¡¯re hoping that happens, if they don¡¯t let us go through for free. To help us in our goal of not fighting a dragon, we¡¯re gonna make sure to be extra kawaii tomorrow. We¡¯ll pull out all the stops! I have a sheet of sparkly cupcake stickers I¡¯ve been saving for something important like this¡­ So, I need my beauty sleep! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (15) Dear Diary: Dragons are immune to Kawaii. Found that out today. We got through the maze pretty fast, and thanks to Mika¡¯s drawing we didn¡¯t get lost. The next flight of stairs spiral down, leading to a big opening rather than a door. Lvl 97 is a big, grassy field, with a kobold village along the left side of the cavern. Apparently it usually has a shield over it, making it look like just more wall. The kobolds really weren¡¯t expecting us. The first of the players should be here in maybe a week at earliest, so they were just doing normal kobold things. Playing, talking, building, cooking. Not one of them had armor on or was holding a weapon. They didn¡¯t know what to do when we showed up, so the dragon himself came to talk to us. The dragon¡¯s current name is Bonecrusher the Black, but he used to be a mechanic from Ohio named Lewis, and told us to call him that. He¡¯s a cool guy. We told him that we were just passing through, didn¡¯t want to hurt anyone. Lewis said that he understood what we were doing, but there was such a thing as professional pride. The kobolds agreed, and not just because he¡¯s a dragon and is in charge. None of them were really ok with letting us waltz through their floor like we owned it. In the end, we made a deal. If we could, as a group, beat the level once, they¡¯d let us through after that without fighting. To me that sounds pretty fair. They¡¯re defending their floor, like they¡¯re supposed to, but as soon as we win, they¡¯ll know we can win, and don¡¯t want to keep on being slaughtered after that. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The only thing is, beating that level is going to be stupid hard. Like, there are two hundred kobolds to get through, and then we get to Lewis. Aya straight up thinks we can¡¯t do it. We all more or less agree, since as soon as we decided to fight Lewis one-shot tpk¡¯d us. It¡¯ll take some time to be strong enough to beat them. We¡¯re going down tomorrow to see exactly how underpowered we are, and judge how much we need to level up our fighting and magic. We¡¯ll also let them know that we won¡¯t be coming back for a while. Meanwhile, my marble Mimo won a race! Finally! It doesn¡¯t affect the standings all that much, but it feels nice to win. Once this tournament is over, I¡¯ll have to set him aside to make sure I never accidentally use him again. A part of me knows that this is just a marble, and is exactly the same as the other couple thousand marbles I own. But in my imagination, this marble is Mimo, who must have taken steroids or something to win the prelims, and is now showing himself to be a slow, lazy marble with barely any drive to win. I¡¯m still trying to figure out how to get a breakfast menu. We can¡¯t exactly call the Admin and be like ¡°yo, give me waffles¡±, but if enough people want something it usually pops into existence. Like these notebooks. And pizza. I might have Mika draw me up a poster asking players to think long and hard about the Waffle House menu. Things to think about. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 22 (16) Dear Diary, Should I give you a name? Instead of just saying ¡°dear diary¡±, maybe I could name you and say ¡°dear Lucy¡± or something. Not Lucy, I don¡¯t really like that name. It was just the first one to come to mind. Anyways, it¡¯s been a week since my last entry. The first group of players got here this afternoon. There were three of them, two elf guys and a fish-race woman. The fish race isn¡¯t, like, a straight-up fish. Not a magikarp with legs. It¡¯s more like¡­ so, remember the live action Aquaman movie? And there were those creepy trench fish monster things? Yeah, that. Not a sexy mermaid thing, closer to something Lovecraft would have imagined. Except with less gloop, Lovecraft probably would have added gloop. Y¡¯no? Well, they came through, and Aya told them to give the dire wolves a bunch of meatballs. I hope it works, and the wolves don¡¯t attack them. We haven¡¯t gone down for a couple days, so the wolves might attack them even with the meatballs, if their memories reset or something. Oh, we finished our marble tournament. Mimo came in dead last. I¡¯m not surprised. I¡¯m never using him again. When we went down to fight the kobolds, we killed like twenty of them. So a tenth. Lilly says we need to learn and level up aoe spells, which I completely agree with. I still don¡¯t want to cause pain, so she taught me a sleep spell. It only affects as many creatures as its level, so currently eight. But if I practice as much as possible until the end of the cycle, I should get over twenty. The only problem is, it isn¡¯t a spell that can just be cast, like teleport. With teleport, the spell doesn¡¯t care if there¡¯s a point to using it, it just teleports you. But with sleep, it has to be cast on someone. Or at least on something that can fall asleep. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Bugs work. Which, easy, just find a bunch of ants, right? Welllllll¡­ The only place on our floor with ants is¡­ the inn. The inn is run¡­ by Dorothy. Yyyyyyyyeah. Kimi heroically offered to leave a bunch of snacks all around her house, to attract bugs, but that was obviously just an excuse to not clean her house. So I declined. I¡¯ve been wandering to the cavern wall in my spare time, to find spiders I can cast the spell on. It takes time, but it¡¯s better than going to the inn. Anyways, Mika is getting better at aiming her ice volley. Kimi has upgraded her fire bolt into fire stream, which basically turns the palm of her hand into a flamethrower. She¡¯s been having fun with that. Aya¡¯s lightning can now cover twelve square feet, and Lilly¡¯s psychic thing can spread out to four rows of people away from the original person targeted. Lilly¡¯s spell also requires a target. I feel really bad for the spiders she tests it on. They don¡¯t deserve it. But yeah, that¡¯s what we¡¯ve been up to this past week. More people will come tomorrow, for sure, so I have to be ready to cook. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (1) Dear Diary, Cycle 22 ended! Woo! We all know what that means: new stuff to play with, a new marble tournament, Staab can come back, and we get to try beating the crap out of an army of kobolds! Staab wasn¡¯t able to leave his floor while there were players passing through. Not that he couldn¡¯t, it¡¯s just¡­ it¡¯s his job to be there. So he was. By the end I could tell Lilly was really missing him. It was cute. My sleep spell is up to lvl 24, which is great. A part of me was worried that it would reset when the cycle changed, even though none of my other stats ever have. But it didn¡¯t, yay. It¡¯ll be nice to feel like I¡¯m helping the group tomorrow when everyone is fighting. We all wonder if the sleep spell can affect Lewis, the dragon. He¡¯s a very powerful, high level creature, so probably not? But we¡¯ll never know until I try. I probably won¡¯t get the chance to try for a couple days, tho. We¡¯re optimistic about our chances of passing lvl 97, but not stupid. No one seriously expects us to win on the first try. I didn¡¯t get a breakfast menu. I¡¯m pretty sad about that. I got a couple new toppings for the pizza and burgers, though, and got a chicken burger option. It¡¯s not mystery chicken bits condensed into a patty, either, it¡¯s recognizably chicken meat. I suspect that next cycle I¡¯ll get wings, or maybe a salad? Salad would be nice, even if literally no one ever orders it. Probably no breakfast foods, unless chicken and waffles appears. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Have you ever wondered why it¡¯s chicken, fish, and beef? Why not call it cow? Or, why not call chicken and fish meat something completely different? That¡¯s been bothering me for the past day or so, and I don¡¯t have Google, which sucks. Not having internet is annoying sometimes. I mean, I would literally kill to get Netflix or something like that. We didn¡¯t get nearly as many new marbles this time around. Apparently they aren¡¯t being dropped as often. That¡¯s ok, because we have at least ten thousand between us. Since Staab doesn¡¯t have any, and he¡¯s joining the tournament this year, we all donated twenty marbles for him to use. He should be able to find a good marble out of a hundred. Oh, when the marbles became his, they went back to being cat eyes. Which, once again, I find hilarious. I could seriously spend hours just giving people a single marble for them to give back to me, and watching it magically change color and style. Why does it amuse me so much? No clue. Seriously, it isn¡¯t that funny. But I laugh like an idiot every time it happens. Anyways, tomorrow is a big day. We¡¯ll find out if the dire wolves recognize us, and if the maze changed. I doubt the water level will be all that different, even if everything else totally changed. I mean, there¡¯s only so many things you can do with sharks, y¡¯no? We¡¯re getting up bright and early to head down, so I have to be asleep like an hour ago. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (2) The kobolds readied themselves for battle. They¡¯d been fighting, dying, respawning for nearly a full week, and finally had a day of respite when the cycle changed. It was always obvious when the cycle changed; a wave of magic pulsed through the dungeon, moving everyone back to where the Admin decreed they should be. Usually after that, it was a good month before they had to fight again. Not this time. They watched the entrance with trepidation, moving uncomfortably in armor, fiddling with whatever weapons they had been provided. This wasn¡¯t a battle they were predestined to lose. This was a battle they could win. Somehow that changed things. It made it more about¡­ pride. Honor. The enemy wasn¡¯t a player, some dungeon crawler who thought they existed to be killed. This time the enemy was like them. A group that knew they were people, and agreed to fight on principle. A multicolored glow grew in the entrance, signaling the arrival of the enemy. The kobolds stood, moving into formation. Behind them Bonecrusher the Black growled, moving to block the exit. As one, the kobolds grimly glared at the entrance. They would win this first battle against the catgirls, if even only one of them remained standing at the end. Dear Diary, I noticed I have ranch dressing in my ingredients inventory. I¡¯m not quite sure what to do with it. I mean, I know some people eat ranch on pizza crusts, but no one has ever asked for it. Maybe it should go on the chicken sandwich? But that sounds kinda weird. It sounds¡­ Actually, hold up, I have to try that. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Yeah, it¡¯s not terrible. It tastes unhealthy, more than anything. With a couple layers of tomato on it, it¡¯s pretty good. But it isn¡¯t an official menu option, so I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ll write it on there, just in case? I really don¡¯t know what to do with the ranch dressing. And why is it called ranch dressing? Was it invented on a ranch? Another thing I wish I had Google to check. Oh well. We had our first fight against the kobolds today. It was intense. I put maybe thirty of them to sleep? But mostly just healed everyone. Yeah, I know my sleep spell is lvl 25 now, but that doesn¡¯t mean I will always catch twenty five kobolds in the aoe. I have to be careful not to hit anyone in my group, and since I¡¯m at the back, that¡¯s easier said than done. I think Kimi had the most fun. Then Staab, then Aya. I think Mika was kind of scared, honestly, since she¡¯s a melee fighter who has never actually fought a real opponent. Slimes don¡¯t count. Lilly I don¡¯t think had fun, but she wasn¡¯t scared, either. She was mostly analytical. Usually Aya is the analytical one, but Aya was too busy lightning-ing people to death. She¡¯s got super long hair, and when she sent off a bolt it would poof up from static electricity, and it looked epic. She knew it, too, which is why she had so much fun. It¡¯s hard not to have fun when you look that cool. But in the end we lost. After Kimi went down, a group of kobolds snuck around behind us and took me out, and it wasn¡¯t long after that that the rest of us were dead. I think we took out maaaaaaaaybe two thirds of them? Which is more than I thought we¡¯d be able to do. Of course, there¡¯s still the dragon to fight when we take out all the kobolds, but that¡¯s a Future Nikki problem. Having premade race tracks has made the marble prelims go super fast. We¡¯re already done, so tomorrow (after fighting the kobolds) we can start on the first real race. My marble this cycle is Mo. I wish Mo the greatest luck. Or at least better luck than Mimo had¡­ We¡¯ll find out tomorrow! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (3) Dear Diary, Yeah, we¡¯re gonna be stuck trying to beat lvl 97 for a while. We only killed like half of them today, since now they know our tactics. They spread out way more, so aoe spells had less of an effect, and one group immediately made it their goal to kill the healer. So, me. After that defeat, we decided to only go down every other day. That way we have a day to level up our spells, and don¡¯t have to go through the whole dying thing every single morning. But we had to tell them, which meant we had to go down again. They were super surprised when we showed up after lunch, but didn¡¯t instantly attack us, so yay. We told Lewis we won¡¯t be coming every day, and everyone was happy about that. Not that they mind fighting us, or don¡¯t like it, but they have their own things to do, y¡¯no? Like we have our marble races, they have their own traditions and stuff to occupy them, that our showing up is taking time away from. Aya says we need to be ready for the last couple levels, too, and told us everything she knows about them. Lvl 98 is a flat, rocky area full of bug swarms that are basically flying piranhas. There are also giant spiders. Kimi doesn¡¯t have Raid or any type of bug repellant in her shop, so we¡¯re mostly going to rely on thick clothes and lots of fire. Mika and I kinda wonder if the reason Kimi doesn¡¯t have bug spray is so she can set fire to more things. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Lvl 99 is an ice level. Our bug-proof clothes are warm, so that¡¯ll help us there, too. Apparently there¡¯s a type of yeti that rides polar bears that live down there. Aya isn¡¯t sure how many there are, tho, or if they¡¯re willing to talk. And finally, lvl 100 is a giant dragon lair on top of being a puzzle room. The dragon is only agro¡¯d if someone touches any of her treasure, or pushes the wrong button. Yep, I said the wrong button. Everyone knows that the reset button is green. But what not everyone knows is, in the center of the floor is a ring of six green buttons. Only one of them is the right one, while the rest of them unleash various horrible things and also wake up the dragon. So, yeah, that¡¯s gonna be fun. But, we don¡¯t have to worry about all that yet. Right now, we just have to focus on beating the kobolds and our marble races. If today¡¯s race is any indication, Mo is a good, fast marble. He won gold, which I¡¯m super happy about. Mika won silver and Staab got bronze. Lilly¡¯s marble (I don¡¯t know her marble¡¯s name) came in last, by like three seconds. Which is horrible. She gave her a stern talking-to, so hopefully tomorrow she does better. I still don¡¯t know what to do with the ranch dressing. I really, really wish I¡¯d gotten pancake mix instead. Oh well, hopefully next cycle¡­ Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (4) Dear Diary, Well, it finally happened. Dorothy noticed we were gone all morning. She kinda freaked out about it, which means she trashed the magic shop looking for Lilly, and was about to trash the info booth when Aya appeared and told her to chill. She was all mad, then cried, then went back to the inn. We¡­ don¡¯t talk about Dorothy. But, I don¡¯t know, I feel like I need to. Dorothy is her real name. We were all given new names when we got here. The system called her Gigi, and made her the orange one. But something went¡­ wrong. I don¡¯t know if there was a glitch in the system, or if she freaked out so much something broke, or what. As far as we can tell, only half of her is here. She¡¯s kind of see-through, like a ghost, and completely monochromatic. She spends her time sitting in a chair at her reception desk, staring at the far wall. Doing literally nothing. It¡¯s creepy. We¡¯ve tried to get her to do things with us, we really have. But it¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s almost like she¡¯s a monster instead of a person, and won¡¯t do anything or leave her desk unless she¡¯s agro¡¯d. I¡¯ve taken her food, and she¡¯ll thank me but won¡¯t eat it until I¡¯m gone. Mika has tried talking to her about the decorations in the inn, and said it¡¯s like talking to the help bot of a big company¡¯s website. But without ever getting the ¡°contact an agent¡± option. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. And then, when Dorothy does leave the inn, she¡¯ll come to one of us and have just¡­ the most bizarre conversations. The last one she had with me, it felt like I was talking to a six year old on espresso trying to tell me her dream and then ask what elements of the dream meant, and then explain what she was going to do at the county fair that weekend. I don¡¯t know. We¡¯ve all tried to contact the Admin about her, but nothing¡¯s changed. So we leave her at the inn, staring at the wall, and never talk about her. Yeah. But anyways. We killed just over half the kobolds today, which is better than last time. We¡¯re figuring out their tactics, now that they¡¯ve figured out ours, so next time we fight we should do much better. They¡¯re going to put me in the middle of the group, and we¡¯re going to run through to the middle of the floor as quickly as possible. Until now we¡¯ve stayed close to the entrance, so we¡¯ll see how moving around affects our success rate. One of the dire wolves tried following us today. He didn¡¯t want to drink a wallclimbing potion, so he died via shark. Poor doggo. But, I¡¯m getting a lot stronger with my teleportation, and I think that if any wolf tries to follow us again, we¡¯ll be close enough to the exit to just carry it over. Hopefully. Hopefully. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (5) Dear Diary, Mo is a very good marble. He¡¯s won gold twice, and silver once. I¡¯m very happy with him. Having all the race tracks made, and just needing assembly, is super convenient. Aya suggested that if we ever get a clock that counts milliseconds we should award points for fastest lap. Our races are always fifteen laps, so there¡¯s plenty of time for a marble to run around super fast. I¡¯ve been experimenting with the chicken and other meats to see what mixture in a meatball the dire wolves like best. I know it isn¡¯t good to give animals food with salt in it, so I¡¯ve been holding back on the ham and pepperoni. On the other hand, they aren¡¯t real wolves, and when the cycle ends they¡¯ll be set back to perfect health, so I¡¯m not too too worried about it. As far as I can tell, they like beef mixed with ham more than anything. One of the wolves, the one who first tried to follow us, likes straight chicken. She doesn¡¯t like pepperoni at all. Well, most of them don¡¯t like pepperoni. I think it¡¯s the spices; they¡¯re wolves, so they aren¡¯t used to anything having lots of flavor. I tried giving meatballs to the sharks once, and they ignored them completely. Meatballs seem to have zero effect on the slimes. The kobolds enjoyed them, and were very polite when I offered them some. Well, before they stabbed me, that is. We are kinda at war, after all. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. We¡¯re slowly getting better at killing kobolds. They change their tactics around, so we have to change ours. It¡¯s kinda fun, really. The actual dying isn¡¯t fun, but seeing how they react to what we do is always interesting. It¡¯s a strategic game almost, and we haven¡¯t had any reason to strategize in a long time. Marble races are super fun, but it doesn¡¯t exactly require a high IQ to watch a glass ball zoom around a track. When I mentioned that to the group, Mika agreed and suggested we make a board game of some sort, where strategy is used. Then Staab said we should just learn how to play poker. Kimi pointed out she has dice, so we could play Yhatzee if we wanted. The only problem with all these suggestions is, we don¡¯t really remember the rules to any of those games. Which, rules are important. Other than meatballs, I¡¯ve been making eggless omelettes lately. Or maybe it¡¯s called crustless pizza. Basically it¡¯s pizza toppings wrapped in cheese like a taco. They¡¯re pretty good, if I do say so myself. All the girls have their own apartment/flat where they live, but none of them have a kitchen. Because we don¡¯t really need to eat. So I end up cooking for everyone. Mika helps sometimes, and Lilly helps occasionally, but only when they want to. Like I¡¯ve said, I like cooking. Making food for five (six, with Staab) people is fun for me. It makes me happy to see them enjoy the food I make. We don¡¯t eat three times a day, since we don¡¯t need to, just twice. The eggless omelettes are good for breakfast, and chicken burgers are good for dinner. I think it¡¯ll be a while before we get tired of chicken burgers. Speaking of, I need to prep the vegetables for tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (6) ***** Dear Diary, I FOUND A USE FOR RANCH DRESSING!!! Ok so, this sounds insane, but slimes can¡¯t cross a line made from ranch dressing. Why? Who the heck knows. But for some reason I just decided to throw things at the slimes, and when I threw ranch dressing, the slime backed away!!! So after we killed that slime, we agro¡¯d the next slime, laid down a line of ranch dressing, and it didn¡¯t cross it! We were able to take it out from a distance. It was so cool! So yeah, lvl 96 is going to be getting a lot of ranch dressing in it over the next few weeks. Or more, since Aya will probably tell the players that the slimes don¡¯t like it. Which I don¡¯t mind, since I literally don¡¯t know what else the stuff is for. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. We¡¯ve killed about 3/4 of the kobolds this time. Slowly but surely we¡¯re getting better. Mo continues to be a very good marble. It¡¯s still too early to tell, but I think I might win the championship this cycle. I¡­ don¡¯t know what else to write. Not much has been happening other than getting killed by kobolds every other day, and the marble races. Maybe I should start writing poetry or something. That sounds hard, tho. I think Aya does poetry. I¡¯m kinda bored, honestly. Not in the ¡°waiting in line at a bank¡± kind of way, more in the ¡°there¡¯s nothing new in my life¡± way. Every day is just, kind of the same. I don¡¯t usually feel it, but sometimes I just¡­ I don¡¯t know. I need something new. And there¡¯s no way for me to get anything new. Which really sucks. Oh well. Things will get better soon. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (7) Dear Diary, So, it¡¯s been four days since I wrote last. Today we killed all the kobolds. Well, I say killed, but I¡¯m including in that the sixty or so that I put to sleep. It took just about all our strength, so when the kobolds were gone Lewis the dragon killed us instantly. We wonder if next time they¡¯ll let us just fight Lewis, or if we¡¯ll have to fight all the kobolds again, too. Not gonna lie, if we have to fight the kobolds too, that¡¯s gonna suck. At the rate we¡¯re going, it¡¯ll take us until just before the players show up to beat the level. Which, I was really hoping we could get to lvl 100 this cycle. Oh well. It¡¯s not like the reset button is going anywhere. Not like I¡¯m going anywhere, either. One of the things Kimi has in her shop is coffee. I don¡¯t have it in my ingredients inventory, because my restaurant is supposed to serve lunch and dinner. But the players will buy coffee (it¡¯s in a can, for some reason) and drink that when they wake up. Anyways, I¡¯ve been getting black, unsweetened coffee from her, boiling it down, and adding it to chocolate milkshakes to make mocha. And it¡¯s my new favorite thing. I can¡¯t boil the coffee down enough to make decent ice cream without giving it a burned flavor, but it works perfectly as a syrup for making milkshakes. Mo came in last in the race today. That¡¯s the first time he¡¯s been last. Which, since we¡¯re halfway done with the tournament, I¡¯m not mad about. I told him that we all have bad days, and no one can expect someone to win all the time, and he¡¯s been doing great so far, and I¡¯m proud of him. Hopefully tomorrow he feels better, and can at least get a bronze. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Staab¡¯s marble, Green Eye, is doing pretty good. I¡¯m glad that for Staab¡¯s first tournament he¡¯ll probably get a championship medal. I mean, he probably won¡¯t get gold, since that will (if things keep going like they are) go to me and Mo, but getting silver or bronze is still exciting. After the races and dinner, since Staab basically lives here (coughwithLillycough) he¡¯s been teaching us how to play poker. I¡­ am really bad at it. Apparently my ears just spin around, showing all my emotions, no matter what. Aya is great at not showing emotions, but she kinda sucks at actually playing the game. So we¡¯re the worst players. Staab has been playing for a long time, so he¡¯s good by default. But holy cow, Kimi is great. She¡¯s by far the best player. She has this grin that, you can¡¯t tell if she¡¯s grinning because she¡¯s bluffing, or grinning because she has a great hand, or if she¡¯s grinning because she¡¯s imagining setting the inn on fire. Mika is pretty good, too. She¡¯s still learning, and is always hesitant about betting large amounts, but she has this constant slightly worried face that she puts on, and no one can tell what the worried face means. I think that by next cycle she¡¯ll be either on Staab¡¯s level or better. Meanwhile, Lilly just¡­ She does fine, but she¡¯s not interested in winning so much as interested in flirting with Staab to make him mess up. Honestly I think she won¡¯t keep playing very long. She says cards in general aren¡¯t her thing. Well, that¡¯s it for now, I need to sleep. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (Mika) Dear diary ^.^ I¡¯ve just about had it. I would kill for Spotify. Literally. Point me towards someone, or a group of people, and I will murder them all. <3 I tried to make strings again today. It¡¯s impossible. I don¡¯t know how guitar strings are made, but they sure as hell aren¡¯t made out of any metal I can get my hands on. And if they are, learning that would piss me off. Because I¡¯ve tried how many times already?!! It¡¯s impossible! >.< I might try playing the drum I made tomorrow, but that¡¯ll just make me mad, because I suck at playing percussion instruments. ?_? Maybe I should try making a slide whistle. I don¡¯t think I could manage a flute or trumpet, or anything like that. On top of not knowing how to play a flute or trumpet. But I should be able to make a metal tube with holes in it, stick a cork in one end, and crimp the other. Not sure I¡¯ll be able to wait Holy crap I can make a harp. Why didn¡¯t I think of that before?! It¡¯s so obvious! Sure, it won¡¯t be a high-quality harp, since I can¡¯t make strings that actually, like, bend. But it¡¯ll end up better than my attempts at guitar making. And yeah, I don¡¯t know how to play the harp. But it¡¯s a stringed instrument, which I know I can play, since I can play guitar. ¡¥\_(¥Ä)_/¡¥ If I get it to work, I¡¯ll throw the drum I made to the sharks. Or maybe into a slime, and watch it dissolve. Yeah, slime sounds more satisfying. I might cover it in ranch dressing then freeze it first, just to say I¡¯m helping kill the slime when I throw it in. O.o Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Yeah, that sounds fun. ^.^ In other news, my attempts at getting pens or pencils that aren¡¯t blue have also failed. I got up to indigo, down to sky blue, over to teal and turquoise, and over in the other direction to blue-violet. Almost to violet and purple, and if you put the almost purple pencil next to the teal pencil, it looks pretty damn purple. But it¡¯s still this side of being true purple. (¨s¡ã¡õ¡ã£©¨s¦à ©ß©¥©ß I still don¡¯t know what would be so horrible about me having an orange pencil, but I guess the laws of the universe decree I can¡¯t own anything too far off from blue. Because I¡¯m the blue one. Get it? GET IT?! HAH Ha freaking ha. ©ß©¥©ß¦à \(¡ã¡õ¡ã)/ ¦à ©ß©¥©ß I never thought the day would come when I realized monochromatic doesn¡¯t only mean black and white. It can also mean blue. The single color of blue. That controls my life. >_> But whatever. I¡¯m going to help Nikki make breakfast tomorrow. I haven¡¯t in a while, and am feeling bad about it. She never asks for help, but if I don¡¯t help once a week or so I can hear my mom¡¯s voice in my head, wailing out ¡°nadie me ayuda en esta casa¡±. Nikki would never say that, mostly because she¡¯s white as hell and doesn¡¯t speak Spanish. But to appease my mother¡¯s soul, I have to help Nikki cook. X_X That¡¯s just the way things are. |?????? ???? ?????¦Ð???? ???????? ?|??? ? ?????? ??l? ?????? ?l?*?? ?????? ???|?????? ???? ?????¦Ð???? ???????? | Maybe I can convince her that stir-fried vegetables are good, and she doesn¡¯t have to put cheese in literally everything¡­ ?©³(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©»(¡ã.¡ã)©·©»(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©³(¡ã.¡ã)©· ? Cycle 23 (Kimi)
Day: 18 of Cycle 23
Advancement of skills: Fire stream, +1, now at lvl 57
Items sold: 6 wallclimbing potions 4 coffee cans, black and unsweetened 2 coffee cans, with vanilla creamer 3 coffee cans, with unflavored creamer Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Result of race for Speeder: Silver
Current championship leaders: Mo (Nikki), gold Green Eye (Staab), silver Speeder (me), bronze
Combined results of five hands of poker: Two hands won +27 marbles
Notable occurrences: We subdued all kobolds, and reduced Bonecrusher the Black to 582 HP. Lilly did not join us for poker. Dorothy has not moved from her chair in over 78 hours.
Cycle 23 (Aya) * * * this book is now mine its pages i will deface let the fun begin * * * information, me my purpose i quite enjoy i know everything * * * aya is my name it was not always aya my name has been changed * * * new day, new cycle things change, but they stay the same what will i find next? * * * i quite like pizza its toppings are delicious Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. i dislike cheese now * * * the slimes, ranch dressing mortal enemies, they are why? i do not know * * * espresso is bad keep it away from kimi it makes her weird¡­ er. * * * temperature change it doesn¡¯t here, which is odd i truly miss spring * * * dire wolves are my friends i love playing with the floofs i hope they stay nice * * * trepidations, me what will happen when we win will we be closed off? * * * yellow, yellow, all yellow, yellow, yellow, all all yellow, yellow * * * freaking hell, nikki why does everything need cheese? i don''t like cheddar * * * stars, hearts and sparkles marble races i enjoy even though i''ll lose * * * i miss my backpack such a common item, yes i can''t get one here * * * Cycle 23 (Lilly) 14-15-20-8-9-14-7 9-19 19-1-3-18-5-4 8-5-18-5 5-22-5-18-25-15-14-5 9-19 1-12-23-1-25-19 9-14-20-5-18-5-19-20-5-4 9-14 5-22-5-18-25-15-14-5 5-12-19-5 19 16-18-9-22-1-20-5 2-21-19-9-14-5-19-19 9-20 19 19-21-16-5-18 1-14-14-15-25-9-14-7 23-8-9-3-8 9-19 23-8-25 9 22-5 4-5-3-9-4-5-4 20-15 19-20-1-18-20 23-18-9-20-9-14-7 9-14 3-15-4-5 20-8-9-19 9-19-14 20 1 16-1-18-20-9-3-21-12-1-18-12-25 4-9-6-6-9-3-21-12-20 3-15-4-5 2-21-20 13-15-18-5 12-9-11-5-12-25 20-8-1-14 14-15-20 20-8-5 15-20-8-5-18 7-9-18-12-19 23-9-12-12 20-8-9-14-11 9-20 19 19-15-13-5 11-9-14-4 15-6 13-1-20-8 15-20-8-5-18 20-8-1-14 11-9-13-9 9 19-21-19-16-5-3-20 19-8-5 19 1-3-20-21-1-12-12-25 18-1-20-8-5-18 7-15-15-4 23-9-20-8 13-1-20-8 2-21-20 1-20 20-8-5 22-5-18-25 12-5-1-19-20 20-8-5 3-15-4-5 23-9-12-12 19-12-15-23 20-8-5-13 4-15-23-14 23-8-9-12-5 18-5-1-4-9-14-7 7-9-22-9-14-7 13-5 13-15-18-5 15-6 1-14 15-16-16-15-18-20-21-14-9-20-25 20-15 3-1-20-3-8 20-8-5-13 9 13-9-7-8-20 7-15 19-15 6-1-18 1-19 20-15 12-5-1-22-5 13-25 10-15-21-18-14-1-12 9-14 20-8-5 9-14-14 14-15 15-14-5 23-15-21-12-4 20-8-9-14-11 20-15 12-15-15-11 20-8-5-18-5 1-12-20-8-15-21-7-8 20-8-1-20 23-15-21-12-4 13-5-1-14 9 4 8-1-22-5 20-15 7-15 20-15 20-8-5 9-14-14 13-15-18-5 20-8-1-14 15-14-3-5 1 3-25-3-12-5 15-18 19-15 14-15 19-1-6-5-20-25 9-19-14 20 23-15-18-20-8 9-20 9 13 19-20-9-12-12 22-5-18-25 21-16-19-5-20 23-9-20-8 4-15-18-15-20-8-25 6-15-18 4-5-19-20-18-15-25-9-14-7 13-25 19-8-15-16 1-14-4 23-8-25 13-25 19-8-15-16 23-8-25 3-15-21-12-4-14 20 19-8-5 8-1-22-5 7-15-14-5 20-15 20-8-5 4-9-14-5-18 1-14-4 4-5-19-20-18-15-25-5-4 20-8-1-20 1-20 20-8-5 22-5-18-25 12-5-1-19-20 19-8-5 3-15-21-12-4 8-1-22-5 20-18-9-5-4 20-15 4-5-16-12-5-20-5 14-9-11-11-9 19 3-8-5-4-4-1-18 19-21-16-16-12-25 20-8-1-20 23-15-21-12-4 8-1-22-5 2-5-5-14 4-15-9-14-7 21-19 1-12-12 1 6-1-22-15-18 1-25-1 19 8-1-9-18 1-12-23-1-25-19 19-13-5-12-12-19 12-9-11-5 3-8-1-13-15-13-9-12-5 23-8-25 3-8-1-13-15-13-9-12-5 6-12-15-23-5-18-19 1-18-5 23-8-9-20-5 14-15-20 25-5-12-12-15-23 1-14-4 19-8-5 8-1-19 19-15 13-21-3-8 8-1-9-18 20-8-1-20 9-6 19-8-5 19-16-5-14-4-19 5-14-15-21-7-8 20-9-13-5 9-14 1-14 5-14-3-12-15-19-5-4 19-16-1-3-5 20-8-5 5-14-20-9-18-5 18-15-15-13 19-13-5-12-12-19 12-9-11-5 3-8-1-13-15-13-9-12-5 9 19-23-5-1-18 13-9-11-1 9-19 1 8-25-16-15-3-18-9-20-5 19-8-5 1-3-20-19 1-12-12 15-8 9 13 20-8-5 19-8-25 15-14-5 9-14 20-8-5 7-18-15-21-16 23-8-15 23-15-21-12-4 14-5-22-5-18 4-15 1-14-25-20-8-9-14-7 2-15-12-4 15-18 4-1-18-9-14-7 2-21-20 19-8-5 19 20-8-5 13-15-19-20 2-12-15-15-4-20-8-9-18-19-20-25 15-21-20 15-6 1-12-12 15-6 21-19 19-20-18-1-9-7-8-20 21-16 3-15-14-14-9-22-9-14-7 14-15-20 20-8-1-20 19-8-5 4 4-15 1-14-25-20-8-9-14-7 20-15 4-9-18-5-3-20-12-25 8-21-18-20 15-14-5 15-6 21-19 14-15 2-21-20 3-15-13-5 15-14 8-5-18 19-20-18-5-14-7-20-8 19-3-15-18-5 8-1-19 20-15 2-5 8-9-7-8-5-18 20-8-1-14 19-20-1-1-2 19 19-8-5 12-15-22-5-19 11-9-12-12-9-14-7 11-15-2-15-12-4-19 1-14-4 23-9-12-12 2-5 4-15-23-14-18-9-7-8-20 4-9-19-1-16-16-15-9-14-20-5-4 23-8-5-14 23-5 19-20-15-16 19-8-5 19 1-12-13-15-19-20 1-19 2-1-4 1-19 11-9-13-9 23-8-15 1-3-20-19 12-9-11-5 1 6-12-9-18-20-25 12-9-20-20-12-5 2-9-13-2-15 2-21-20 9-19 9-14 3-8-1-18-7-5 15-6 20-8-5 13-15-19-20 3-15-13-16-12-9-3-1-20-5-4 19-8-15-16 8-5-18-5 19-8-5 8-1-19 20-15 11-14-15-23 1-12-12 19-15-18-20-19 15-6 20-8-9-14-7-19 1-14-4 2-5 7-15-15-4 1-20 14-5-7-15-20-9-1-20-9-15-14 14-15-20 20-15 13-5-14-20-9-15-14 13-1-20-8 20-15 8-15-12-4 20-8-1-20 16-15-19-9-20-9-15-14 9 4-15-14 20 18-5-1-12-12-25 20-18-21-19-20 8-5-18 19-9-14-3-5 9 19-21-19-16-5-3-20 8-5-18 9-14-20-5-12-12-9-7-5-14-3-5 19-3-15-18-5 9-19 8-9-7-8-5-18 20-8-1-14 13-9-14-5 2-21-20 23-9-12-12 14-5-22-5-18 19-8-15-23 9-20 Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. 1-14-4 20-8-5-14 20-8-5-18-5 19 14-9-11-11-9 19-8-5 19 7-5-14-21-9-14-5-12-25 1 7-15-15-4 16-5-18-19-15-14 7-15-9-14-7 2-25 16-5-18-19-15-14-1-12-9-20-25 2-21-20 4-5-1-18 12-15-18-4 23-8-1-20 9-19 8-5-18 15-2-19-5-19-19-9-15-14 23-9-20-8 3-8-5-5-19-5 9 7-5-20 20-8-1-20 19-8-5 4-15-5-19-14 20 8-1-22-5 1-12-12 20-8-5 9-14-7-18-5-4-9-5-14-20-19 20-15 13-1-11-5 5-22-5-18-25-20-8-9-14-7 19-8-5 3-15-21-12-4 5-22-5-18 23-1-14-20 20-15 13-1-11-5 2-21-20 23-8-25 4-15-5-19 5-22-5-18-25-20-8-9-14-7 8-1-22-5 20-15 8-1-22-5 3-8-5-5-19-5 15-14 9-20 9 13 7-15-9-14-7 20-15 8-5-12-16 8-5-18 3-15-15-11 20-15-13-15-18-18-15-23 1-14-4 13-5-14-20-9-15-14 20-8-1-20 20-15 8-5-18 7-9-22-5 8-5-18 1 12-9-20-20-12-5 8-9-14-20 20-8-1-20 23-5 18-5 1-12-12 19-9-3-11 1-14-4 20-9-18-5-4 15-6 3-8-5-5-19-5 25-5-1-8 20-8-1-20 19-8-15-21-12-4 1-2-15-21-20 4-15 9-20 1-18-5-14 20 25-15-21 7-9-18-12-19 7-12-1-4 25-15-21 3-18-1-3-11-5-4 20-8-5 3-15-4-5 6-15-21-14-4 15-21-20 1-12-12 13-25 4-9-18-20-25 12-9-20-20-12-5 19-5-3-18-5-20-19 8-15-23 9 18-5-1-12-12-25 6-5-5-12 1-2-15-21-20 5-22-5-18-25-15-14-5 7-15-15-4 14-15-23 7-15 7-5-20 5-1-20-5-14 2-25 1 19-8-1-18-11 Nothing is sacred here. Everyone is always interested in everyone else¡¯s private business! It¡¯s super annoying. Which is why I¡¯ve decided to start writing in code. This isn¡¯t a particularly difficult code, but more likely than not the other girls will think it¡¯s some kind of math. Other than Kimi; I suspect she¡¯s actually rather good with math. But, at the very least the code will slow them down while reading, giving me more of an opportunity to catch them. I might go so far as to leave my journal in the inn. No one would think to look there. Although, that would mean I¡¯d have to go to the inn more than once a cycle or so. No, safety isn¡¯t worth it. I¡¯m still very upset with Dorothy for destroying my shop. And why my shop? Why couldn¡¯t she have gone to the diner, and destroyed that? At the very least she could have tried to deplete Nikki¡¯s cheddar supply. That would have been doing us all a favor. Aya¡¯s hair always smells like chamomile. Why? Chamomile flowers are white, not yellow. And she has so much hair, that if she spends enough time in an enclosed space the entire room smells like chamomile. I swear Mika is a hypocrite. She acts all ¡°oh, I¡¯m the shy one in the group, who would never do anything bold or daring¡±, but she¡¯s the most bloodthirsty out of all of us. Straight-up conniving. Not that she¡¯d do anything to directly hurt one of us, no, but come on. Her strength score has to be higher than Staab¡¯s. She loves killing kobolds, and will be downright disappointed when we stop. She¡¯s almost as bad as Kimi, who acts like a flirty little bimbo, but is in charge of the most complicated shop here. She has to know all sorts of things, and be good at negotiation, not to mention math, to hold that position. I don¡¯t really trust her, since I suspect her intelligence score is higher than mine, but will never show it. And then there¡¯s Nikki. She¡¯s genuinely a good person, going by personality. But dear lord, what is her obsession with cheese. I get that she doesn¡¯t have all the ingredients to make everything she could ever want to make, but why does everything have to have cheese on it? I¡¯m going to ¡°help¡± her cook tomorrow, and mention that to her. Give her a little hint that we¡¯re all sick and tired of cheese. Yeah, that should about do it. Aren¡¯t you girls glad you cracked the code? Found out all my dirty little secrets? How I really feel about everyone? Good. Now go get eaten by a shark. Cycle 23 (8) Dear Diary, We were so close to beating Lewis today! We got his HP into the red, which is way better than before. We still have to fight the kobolds, which takes a lot of effort, but Aya found a safe zone in the corner of the room. So when we get down to the last twenty or so kobolds, we run there and kill them from a distance, then have time to heal up and recharge our magic. That makes life so much easier. I think next time we go through, we¡¯ll beat lvl 97. I kinda want to throw a party after that, and take the kobolds a bunch of ice cream cakes. I don¡¯t think Lilly or Aya will want to have a party with the kobolds, but Mika and Kimi absolutely would. Actually, yeah. I¡¯m going to write a letter telling them that I¡¯m gonna bring down a bunch of ice cream cakes and pizza, and leave it with one of the higher up kobolds when we beat the level. Because it¡¯s been way too long since I¡¯ve been to a real party. And something tells me the kobolds know how to party. That means I¡¯ll have to spend most of tomorrow cooking. Oh noes, what a shame¡­ Heck, I might start tonight, just to make sure I have enough. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Oh, I¡¯ve been told that I need to start making things without cheese. The girls were all very polite, and didn¡¯t want to hurt my feelings, but they say that if they eat one more bite of cheddar in the next week they¡¯ll catapult me into a slime. So, yeah. I¡¯ve been trying to come up with recipes that don¡¯t have cheese. I¡¯ve come up with a couple pretty good things, but I¡­ I just really like cheese. I¡¯m sorry. And it¡¯s not like I have a wide variety of ingredients to choose from, it¡¯s not my fault that one of the few proteins I have access to is cheese. But yeah, I get it, eating the same thing every day gets old fast, so I won¡¯t make anything with cheese in it for the rest of the cycle. At least not for the other girls. Staab wasn¡¯t there for the cheese talk, so I don¡¯t know his feelings on it. I should ask him. My marble Mo is back to doing good in the races. He hasn¡¯t gotten any gold medals, but he¡¯s won silver or bronze each time. I think it¡¯s still going to be enough to get me the championship gold. And as for poker¡­ Lilly doesn¡¯t play any more. She hangs around and watches, but doesn¡¯t want to participate. Which, I get it. Cards, as she¡¯s said, aren¡¯t her thing. Mika, on the other hand, keeps getting better. She¡¯s on Staab¡¯s level now, so he and Kimi will have to look out. Me and Aya still suck. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s going to change. Aya suggested we make a chess board, to play that while those three play poker, so that we don¡¯t lose all our marbles. I like that idea, but Staab said poker is best with five players. Lilly was kinda upset at that, but hey, not playing was her choice. She shouldn¡¯t be mad. Anyways, I¡¯m gonna go start making pizzas for the kobold party. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (9) Dear Diary, Well, I was right. The kobolds know how to party. They have a full band, and cleared off the battlefield to make a space for dancing. It was so much fun! They have a couple food things I don¡¯t, like sausages and cobb salad, so there was a good variety of food. They also have a dark beer, which was nice. I don¡¯t have anything alcoholic on my menu, and the only thing Kimi has in her store is whiskey, so it¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve had alcohol. All six of us ended up going. Lilly and Aya (as predicted) didn¡¯t really want to go, but Staab wanted to go. If Staab was going, Lilly was going. And then Aya decided she didn¡¯t want to be alone on the floor all night. Well, alone except for¡­ Dorothy¡­ which kinda makes things worse. Mika ended up winning a guitar from one of the band members in a game of poker, which she was thrilled about. She¡¯s super into music, so having a guitar will be good for her. The kobold was pretty mad about it, tho. Kobolds are about a foot shorter than us, so it was slightly awkward dancing with them, but talking to them was fun. We¡¯d been so focused on fighting them that we hadn¡¯t ever had any actual conversations. I met a lady who had died at the age of eighty seven, had nine grandchildren, and knew a whole bunch of cooking tricks. She invited me to come down tomorrow and cook with her, which will be epic. I asked if she minds being, well, a kobold, and she says she enjoys the life. Everyone is more or less the same age here, but they respect her for having died at the oldest age, and ask her advice on all sorts of things. She¡¯s become a grandmother to everyone on the floor. I instantly adopted her, too. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Kimi got into an argument with someone who used to be a university professor, and they ended up drawing math equations on the wall of a building. The complicated kind, with letters in the equations. A group of a dozen or so joined them, trying to figure it out. I wasn¡¯t there, but apparently they were about to murder each other over what C represented, when the owner of the house saw their math and chased everyone away. Kimi will be joining me when I go down tomorrow, so she can continue the argument. The kobolds found out Aya has an amazing announcer voice, and asked her to announce for a race. That was fun to watch. Apparently they have foot races like we have marble races, and they asked her to announce their big race in five days. Lilly took over the food tables, and made sure everyone got enough to eat. She had fun directing things. Staab got her to dance a couple times, but she seemed happiest just watching everyone having fun. There were a couple kobolds back there with her, and it looked like they had some pretty interesting conversations. And Staab just danced. For hours. He must have danced with every kobold on the floor, on top of all five of us. He would have challenged Lewis the dragon to a dance-off if he hadn¡¯t been talked out of it. Oh yeah, we beat Lewis. I probably should have said that at the beginning. Oh well. The kobolds are 10/10 a super cool group. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (10) Dear Diary, The kobolds let us through without fighting now, as they promised. And we¡¯re getting pretty fast at going through the shark and slime levels. I miss the days when sharks were all I had to worry about. Now I have to worry about swarms of fist-sized flying ants. Being eaten by a shark is painful. Being dissolved by a slime is painful. Being stabbed to death by a kobold is painful. But none of that is nearly as painful as being eaten by flying ants is. They bite in, and rip out tiny pieces of skin, over and over again. Until you die. I think I¡¯m going to end up with a severe fear of bugs before this level is over. Oh! And if that wasn¡¯t good enough, there are these giant worms that¡­ remember the robot shark thing from the James and the Giant Peach movie? Just row upon row of whirring teeth? Yeah that, in a worm that¡¯s about fifty feet long. They pop out of solid rock and freakin¡¯ fly towards their prey. So, us. I now know what hamburger meat feels like when it¡¯s being ground up. There are also giant spiders! And by giant I mean like three feet tall. We decided that once was quite enough for that, so I¡¯m going to be spending the rest of the cycle practicing teleportation. I¡¯ll also be spending it cooking with Nat, the grandmother kobold. She¡¯s super cool, and knows an insane amount of stuff about cooking. With my restaurant¡¯s inventory and her basic kobold inventory, we can make a whole bunch of stuff that neither of us could before. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. One of the things kobolds have to cook with is¡­ pause for effect ¡­eggs. Eggs! You know how much I¡¯ve wanted to get my hands on a bunch of eggs. So now I don¡¯t have to put cheese in literally everything, I can mix it up! I can make omelettes and quiches! And she taught me how to make calzone, which I hadn¡¯t really considered before. She didn¡¯t have an oven, but when she heard I had all the ingredients to make pizza she immediately asked a group of kobolds to make her an oven, and now she has the most beautiful brick oven outside her house. It¡¯s seriously a work of art, and I¡¯m jealous. Or I would be, if I didn¡¯t get to use it whenever I want. We both lamented that I have pizza dough instead of the ingredients to make pizza dough. Well, pizza bread dough. And it just¡­ It feels so good to have someone understand. Like, the girls are all very polite and listen when I complain about not having access to something like fresh basil or something, but they, in their heart of hearts, don¡¯t care. They have their own things they wish they had, things I don¡¯t really care about. But if I tell Nat that I really wish I had fresh basil, she sighs and lists a whole bunch of things we could make if we did have it. Being understood like that is¡­ It¡¯s super nice. Mika and Kimi get it. They come down with me, Mika to play music and Kimi to argue with the math guy, who just goes by Y. I think Kimi kinda likes him. This sounds weird, but I can tell because she hasn¡¯t flirted with him. She flirts with everyone, as long as they pass the harkness test, so the fact that she just plain talks with this guy is¡­ telling. Anyways, I have to go check on my souffl¨¦. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (11) Dear Diary, The last marble race of the cycle was today! Staab won it, which, I¡¯m happy for him. Of course, I won the championship gold, so nya. But good for him, getting the last win. Kimi ended up winning silver in the championship, so tradition dictates we can¡¯t be friends until the cycle ends. I think it¡¯s a dumb tradition, but oh well. It¡¯s only for a couple weeks at most. We helped Mika dismantle the last racing course thing, and it feels kinda weird to see all the pieces of the courses just stacked in a corner of her living room. Before, she¡¯d always melt them down, so there wasn¡¯t any trace of them when the players got here. But now, we don¡¯t really want the players to know that we have, like, lives that don¡¯t revolve around them, so we have to hide the tracks. It¡¯s kinda weird that we all feel that way. Like, it¡¯s obvious that we¡¯ve been physically changed. And there are certain things we know now, like how to access our inventories, and how to do our jobs. But this is just a feeling, an emotion. And if our emotions on ¡°don¡¯t let the players know we have marble races¡± has been changed (or as Lilly says, ¡°implanted in us¡±), what other things do we feel that we wouldn¡¯t normally? Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. We sort of know about some things. Like, talking about our lives before we got here feels¡­ uncomfortable. And talking about how we died is straight-up impossible. We don¡¯t talk about it. We just don¡¯t. There are certain questions we never ask, and if we dared ask, no one would dare answer. But it boils down to, how much of our personality changed when we got here? Are we- am I the same person I was as a human? If I¡¯m not, does it really matter? I mean, I¡¯m happy as I am here. I¡¯m happy with my friends, and cooking, and marbles. So, is being happy all that really matters? ¡­Wow that got deep. Anyways, since the marble races are over, the first players will be down soon. Tomorrow I¡¯m going to write up a new menu and hang it up. There¡¯s a virtual menu that pops up when a player opens my icon, but at this point it doesn¡¯t have half of the things I can actually make on it. Besides, I like having a physical menu. I might ask Mika to make it nice and pretty for me. She¡¯s been playing a lot of music lately, now that she has a guitar. I can hear it when I leave all the doors and windows open, and it¡¯s pretty good. She doesn¡¯t always get the notes right, and sometimes she¡¯ll just play the same song over and over again for hours, but still it¡¯s kinda cool. We don¡¯t have any kind of music player here, like a radio or youtube or whatever, so this is the first time I¡¯ve heard real music in months. I¡¯m not going to complain. Anyways, I need to figure out what¡¯ll happen if Mika draws something in blue, then it becomes mine. It¡¯ll probably become green, but you never know. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (12) Dear Diary, It¡¯s been a couple days. The first of the players came through. It was a group of three, and they stayed two whole days. They mostly just drank and made plans for the next seven floors. They spent most of their time in my restaurant or with Aya. I¡­ resented them. I know they¡¯re doing what they have to. And I did what I¡¯m supposed to, by feeding them. But I didn¡¯t want to. I¡¯ve gotten used to hanging out with Nat and the other kobolds, and feeding the dire wolves, and everything else we do. To be stuck on one floor again, even though I know it won¡¯t last long¡­ It kinda really sucks. Now more people are coming through, and it won¡¯t be long before the cycle ends. At least now I¡¯m busy, and don¡¯t think about what I could be doing if I weren¡¯t stuck here as much. I know the other girls also want to get off the floor. Not Lilly so much, she just misses Staab. But Aya wants to get back to the horrible bug level, Mika wants to try playing her new song to the kobold band, and Kimi wants to debate technical mathematics with the guy she has a crush on. And yeah, I¡¯m 90% sure that she has a crush on Y the kobold. She¡¯s been acting about the same as Lilly with her sighs and longing glances at the door. It¡¯s cute. I feel bad for them, and it just makes me feel even more resentful towards the players. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Iiiiiin other news, calzones are super popular. Even more popular than straight pizza, which I find interesting. I kinda wonder if there are other floors with catgirls (I presume so), and if those catgirls also have pizza available. That would kinda explain it. Cuz at this point pizza would be a thing the players have had a lot of if they wanted it, but calzone (even tho it¡¯s basically just a pizza burrito) is something new. It makes me wonder what the players would do if I offered omelettes. I¡¯d have to stockpile eggs from Nat and the other kobolds, but I think I could get enough to make like a hundred omelettes. It¡¯s worth a shot for next time. Of course, I¡¯d much rather be able to get eggs from my own inventory, but honestly I¡¯ve given up hope of that happening. I¡¯ve decided to presume that nothing new will ever be added into my inventory, ever. Sure, things get added pretty much every cycle, but it¡¯s always stuff like¡­ ranch dressing. Stuff I have to get creative with. Usually I don¡¯t get stuff I specifically want. Oh well. Aya¡¯s been telling people that the slimes hate ranch dressing. Some of them don¡¯t believe her, a few do believe her (on the basis that she¡¯s supposed to know this stuff), and a couple people don¡¯t believe her but are willing to give it a shot. It¡¯s weird, but I like the people who come in and ask me for meatballs and ranch dressing much more than people who never ask for those things. Hmm, speaking of, I need to stock up on meatballs for tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 23 (13) Dear Diary, So, I guess something big changed on lvl99. Usually we only get one or two people coming through more than once, but this time it¡¯s been basically everybody. Aya doesn¡¯t know what it is. She suspects, but she¡¯s the type of person who doesn¡¯t say something until she¡¯s absolutely certain that what she says is right. I guess that¡¯s why she got the spy job in the first place. Like, I would say things that are super wrong, and probably lie to some people just because I was bored. But Aya is always careful about what she says. Anyways, we know that lvl 99 is an ice level. There are polar bears and yetis there. That hasn¡¯t changed. I know, because I heard someone complaining about them. They didn¡¯t say what killed them specifically, so it could be that there are just more yetis or something. Kimi wonders if the ice is thinner, and people are falling through. Mika wonders if there¡¯s more wind and snow, making it harder to see. Lilly says that the people who come through for the second time have all asked for an upgrade to their flight spells, which¡­ is interesting. But not very helpful. I mean, the polar bears don¡¯t have any kind of ranged weapon (and can¡¯t yeet themselves out of the water like sharks), so it could just be that, or the thin ice, or even more snow because the spell anchors you in space regardless of wind. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I kind of enjoy that we¡¯re all paying attention to that stuff now. Before, we didn¡¯t care what was on the floors below us, because we thought we¡¯d never see it. But now we have. We like the dire wolves, and don¡¯t like the slimes. We have strategies for dealing with sharks and kobolds. We know we have to survive the bugs and evil worms, same as the players. So the fact that they¡¯re all having trouble with a level is pretty fascinating. Anyways, Lilly is practicing her flight spell. Aya is, too. They say it can¡¯t hurt to have a head start on the spell, since apparently we¡¯ll need it. And if they get strong enough, the rest of us might not need it at all. Practicing spells with players around is¡­ tricky. Lilly is able to, since she¡¯s the mage. She¡¯s supposed to be able to do magic. Aya is able to, because honestly people don¡¯t hang out in her shop much. But the rest of us don¡¯t know when players will suddenly drop in and want to spend three hours talking to us or something. There¡¯s a guy who¡¯s decided he¡¯s in love with Kimi. It¡¯s funny and sad to see him with her. On the one hand, she¡¯s perfectly willing to flirt with anyone. On the other hand, she has a legit crush on Y, the kobold. To us the difference in how she acts is obvious. To him, who doesn¡¯t know Y exists, not so much. I think Aya is planning on giving him a hint tonight that she isn¡¯t, erm, available. Besides, even if she does like the player, they¡¯ll hardly ever get to see each other. That would suck. Anyways, someone just came in and is trying to summon me. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (1) *** Dear Diary, New cycle! Woo! I still don¡¯t have eggs! Not woo! I got a couple new drink options. Coffee, hot chocolate, lemonade, and apple cider. The cider is pretty good. They¡¯re all powders, so instant coffee, but meh. There¡¯s still no breakfast options, but I had chicken soup, tomato soup, and clam chowder added. The soups are canned, so no real ingredients. I got saltines to go with them, tho, and I¡¯m going to take those down to Nat to see if she can figure out something cool to do with them. I bet she will. Oh, the reason I got all this warm stuff is because our floor changed to be a winter floor. It snows for an hour every night, and is just cold enough to not melt through the day. It¡¯s¡­ I¡¯ll get used to it. Mika is impervious to cold, and Aya lives in hoodies anyways, so they¡¯re fine. The rest of us had to change our clothes, tho. Stolen story; please report. We each have a clothes inventory, and can request changes. But they have to be approved by the Admin, and we aren¡¯t allowed to have the same thing as the other girls. So Aya has the only true hoodie. Kimi has a zip-up hoodie, and Lilly got a knit sweater that looks super good on her. I ended up with a long-sleeved t-shirt, while Mika kept her no-sleeved hoodie. The cycle changed at about five in the afternoon. Staab came down like an hour after that, which made Lilly happy. Tomorrow morning we¡¯ll head down to visit the kobolds. I think that if Kimi and I were strong enough to make it all the way there by ourselves we would have gone. With Mika we can do it, but we aren¡¯t quiiiite strong enough to get through the slimes by ourselves. Plus I didn¡¯t have any meatballs made, and that would have taken a couple hours. Aya is mostly eager to get to the bugs. She¡¯s worried that the other levels have changed, too, and we¡¯ll have to find new ways to get through. But Staab says his level didn¡¯t change, so who knows. I¡¯m going to be spending the rest of the night making meatballs for the dire wolves. I hope they still like them. They probably will. Hmmm I wonder if the slimes would explode or something if I made a meatball full of ranch dressing and threw it at them. Only one way to find out! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (2) Dear Diary, Well, we were supposed to get to the evil bug level today, but somehow we spent it hanging out with the kobolds instead. Aya was the only one who was upset about that. We spent the day- well, I spent most of the day cooking with Nat. She doesn¡¯t ever get new ingredients, so she just wanted to play with mine. Which I was totally fine with, since she was able to make a good enough imitation of lemon meringue pie. And I failed to make a mocha mousse. It was super fun. Mika spent the day playing music and writing songs with the band. Kimi spent the day¡­ I think she and Y were figuring out whether or not the dungeon is straight up/down, or if it spirals, or what. They measured a lot of things, and then he left for an hour to measure the stairs leading to the bug level. Staab (he was there, of course) joined in the kobold¡¯s races. Lilly cheered him on, and found out that it was possible to teach kobolds spells. I think she gave them a corrupted fireball? It¡¯s basically a fireball, but it shoots out of your mouth, so it looks like you¡¯re breathing fire. The kobolds loved that one. Aya spent most of the day hanging out with Lewis the dragon, trying to convince him to join us. He declined. He said the thought of leaving the kobolds felt super wrong, the same as talking about how we died. And while a couple of the kobolds would happily join us, I don¡¯t think we could convince all of them to go. There are just too many of them. Plus if we used them to beat the next couple levels, how would we decide who gets to push the button? It wouldn¡¯t be fair. It¡¯s best if we go down in a small group. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Oh! As far as we can tell, there weren¡¯t any changes to any level other than ours. The dire wolves are still our friends, and were super happy to see us. The sharks still faceplant into the ceiling, which is still funny. And the slimes still suck. Throwing ranch dressing meatballs at them didn¡¯t do much. They didn¡¯t like it, but it didn¡¯t one-shot KO them or anything. It¡¯d probably be like a 30 shot KO. But Nat suggested making a hollow ball with bread, then fill that with ranch. That way we throw the ball, the slime eats it, bread dissolves, and then there¡¯s an explosion of pure ranch dressing. Which should be like, a two-shot KO. Maybe one, maybe three, but less than five for sure. Or, at least that¡¯s the theory. I¡¯m gonna try it tomorrow. Nat showed me how to make a hollow dough ball, and then we got a thing for injecting the ranch dressing out of a health pack. Well, it¡¯s not technically for injecting ranch dressing into a hollow dough ball, because I don¡¯t think something that specific exists. It¡¯s for forcing health potions into someone¡¯s mouth if they¡¯re down but not completely dead yet. I think players get like ten seconds or something of just laying on the ground, dead, before they respawn somewhere safe. But anyways the injector thingy works. So yeah, I¡¯m off to make slime-killing ranch balls. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (3) Dear Diary, Holy crap the ranch balls work beautifully! So, all they are is a thin layer of pizza dough, made into a ball, and filled with ranch dressing. The slimes, for some weird reason, don¡¯t like ranch dressing. They¡¯re allergic to it or something. So, when the balls hit the slimes, at first nothing happens. They kinda pause, trying to figure out what the heck this new thing is, then decide it¡¯s harmless and keep going. And then the acid in them dissolves the bread, and boom! They explode! Well, explode isn¡¯t quite the right word. It¡¯s more like they lose their shape and sploosh down to the ground. The only problem with that is, they don¡¯t dissolve and they¡¯re still acidic. And sometimes freezy or burny. But we have teleportation and flight and potions that let us walk on walls, so it¡¯s not that big of a deal. Kimi says she might sell the ranch balls in her shop, and that feels like a good thing to do. Having ranch dressing and knowing that slimes don¡¯t like it is one thing, but to have an actual thing that was obviously made to kill slimes are two completely different things. And we can¡¯t let the players know we¡¯ve been to other floors, soooo yeah having a random ranch bomb appear in Kimi¡¯s shop is better than people buying them from me. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. And meatballs for the dire wolves are different. Because meatballs are something you wouldn¡¯t be surprised at finding out a restaurant sold. But enough about slimes. I¡¯ve been thinking about slimes way too much lately. Instead, I need to focus on bugs. Bugs are horrible. I hate them. The spiders have a poison that¡­ well¡­ Ok so, Kimi has a poison potion. And we¡¯ve all tried it, because why not. We were bored. And we know we¡¯d just respawn in our bedrooms anyways, so no real harm done. But Kimi¡¯s poison feels like¡­ I don¡¯t know, liver failure? Kidney failure? Basically something in the stomach area that isn¡¯t the stomach stops working, and it hurts super bad, and it gets worse and worse until you die. But the spider poison is different. It looks more like a super infected wound? The blood veins around it turn black and hurt like heck, and slowly the black veins stretch out until they reach your heart, and then you die. It¡¯s weird that there¡¯s a difference, and makes me wonder how many different types of poison there are. But then again, I don¡¯t really want to find out. I can teleport pretty far now, I¡¯m at lvl 53, but to get all the way across the bug floor I think I¡¯d need to teleport twice even at lvl 100. Lilly wonders if turning invisible would help. I doubt it, since I think bugs find food through smell, don¡¯t they? But at this point I¡¯m willing to try anything. The problem is that the ants fly, spiders climb, and the giant worm thing can yeet itself out of the ground pretty far. So climbing up on the wall or flying ourselves isn¡¯t helpful. Oh well, I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll figure out how to get through. We always do. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (4) The insects swarmed across the dry, barren landscape. They were hungry. They were always hungry. Below them, closer to the wall, the Gusanote made the earth ripple. It wasn¡¯t a big ripple, and made no sound, but the insects knew to avoid it. Spiders came out from under the shade of rocks as they passed by. The spiders weren¡¯t hungry, but they were extremely territorial. The insects did not know what the spiders were protecting, and after half a dozen tries the Queen had decreed they would never find out. Someone is here. The swarm turned, hearing the words of their Queen. As they approached the entrance they saw nothing. They heard nothing. Are you sure? They asked. The Queen made a sound of affirmation. I can smell them. They drew closer, ignoring all senses except smell. Oh yeah, they¡¯re here. The catgirls again? That¡¯s what they smell like. The swarm was amused. Trying something new. We like them. What are they doing? The Queen asked. They aren¡¯t players. The swarm circled the catgirls and hobgoblin, considering. Should we help them get through? If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The Queen took her time as the swarm circled, clearly making the catgirls nervous. Yes, she decided. Help them through, and follow them. I want to know what they¡¯re doing. The swarm moved, placing themselves behind the group. As you wish. ***** Dear Diary, Today was kinda odd. We got through the bug level. But, we got through with the help of the flying ant things. It sounds crazy, I know. We all drank the invisibility potions, and Lilly activated a silence spell so we wouldn¡¯t make any noise. I thought it wouldn¡¯t matter, and that the ants would attack us anyways. It looked like they would at first, since they came straight at us and surrounded us, but then¡­ they didn¡¯t. They¡­ It was kinda like they herded us. While we were still invisible and silent. They kept us away from the giant worm thing, and away from the spiders. Well, one spider still attacked, but that¡¯s way better than all of the spiders attacking. The potions wore off at that point, but the ants didn¡¯t act any different. Then we got to the exit, went through, and the ants followed. All the way to lvl99. Where we scared the crap out of a couple yetis and were promptly blasted with ice. So now we know yetis have ice magic. Good to know. Oh! I haven¡¯t talked about the races yet this cycle! How could I have forgotten the most important thing in our lives? We¡¯ve gone through all the prelims already. My marble this cycle is Momomo. Our first real race was yesterday, and he came in fourth. So, not great, but it¡¯s a position we can work with. If he manages to get first place in one of the next two races we¡¯ll still have a good shot at getting a championship medal. I explained to him that each race, while fun, isn¡¯t as important as the overall standing. I think he listened, and took my words to heart. We¡¯ll see how he does tomorrow. Aya¡¯s marble came in first, by like eight seconds. Which is insane. She¡¯s thrilled, but the rest of us are kind of wondering if it¡¯s a fluke or if her marble is cheating somehow. Like, it¡¯s just a blob of glass and can¡¯t cheat on purpose, but there might be something about it that makes it heavier than the other marbles? Or something. If Aya wins by that much tomorrow we might have to weigh the marbles and call these first races invalid. Which, I wouldn¡¯t mind, but Mika got second and she¡¯d be annoyed. Anyways, we¡¯ll see tomorrow! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (5) Dear Diary, Nat and I tried to make pancakes yesterday, using pulverized saltines as flour. They turned out horrible. Way too salty, and since we didn¡¯t have any raising agent they were stupid dense. I suggested making crepes, but they¡¯d still be extremely salty. It sucks not having a grocery store. But, I left a whole bunch of saltines with Nat today, and she might figure out something cool. She¡¯ll activate her grandmother superpowers and cook something epic, I¡¯m sure. If not, at least she¡¯ll have gained knowledge and experience. Today we went down to lvl 98 without using any potions, and the ants still herded us. We got attacked by two spiders, and the ants held us in place for like five minutes as the big evil worm thing swam by. After that we agreed that the ants are trying to help us. The yetis weren¡¯t at the entrance of lvl 99 this time. I think we scared them away. The floors/levels are usually set up like a rectangle, with the entrance at one end and the exit at the other. So when we leave the entrance all we have to do is go straight. I know a lot of players explore the floors, killing literally everything to level up faster, but we don¡¯t care about that. We can just come back if we fail. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. We didn¡¯t see the yetis at all. We walked for a while, then came to a big canyon in the ice. It looked super cool, and had fog at the bottom. I was about to teleport us across when Aya said she thought we should climb down. That started a biiiig argument. On the one hand, we expected the door to be on the other side of the canyon. On the other hand, knowing what to do is Aya¡¯s job. In the end we decided to climb down, and as soon as we entered the fog we were attacked and killed by a bunch of ice bats. Next time we¡¯re going to teleport across. I think we should try to find the yetis, and ask what changed on their floor last cycle. I mean, they should know. And if they have magic then they should be people like us, and not just monsters like the slimes or spiders. In other news, Aya¡¯s marble hasn¡¯t come in first again, so we¡¯re pretty sure her winning by so much was a fluke. I¡¯m currently in the championship bronze spot, which is the scariest place to be. In silver or gold you can afford to lose a race or two, and if you¡¯re below bronze then you just focus on winning and it¡¯s fine. But being in the bronze spot, every single race could determine your fate. I had a talk with Momomo about how his racing tactics were totally stressing me out, and he looked like he was going to do things differently in the future. At least, that¡¯s the impression I got from the inanimate lump of glass which I have named and assigned a personality to. Stop judging me, inanimate book which I have assigned a personality to. Anyways, I¡¯m going to make a pizza to give to the yetis in case we find them. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (6) Dear Diary, Momomo won gold today! He¡¯s in the championship silver spot now, so I can stop worrying for a day or two. I am now stress-free. Nat figured out how to make an ok pie crust with the saltines. For savory pies, like chicken pot pies or whatever. It¡¯s not the best thing in the universe, and we can¡¯t put any salt at all in the meat filling, but the kobolds happily ate them all, so yay? We kinda decided that we¡¯re giving up on the saltines now. We figured out something to do with them, and don¡¯t need to try anything else. On to other things, like seeing what we can do with the clams from clam chowder. The tomato soup I have is a cream, so other than reducing it to put in calzones it¡¯s pretty useless. The chicken soup is just broth, chicken bits, and celery, so after the clams we¡¯re going to focus on the celery. I boiled the meatballs we give the dire wolves in chicken broth, and they absolutely loved it. The broth is kinda salty, tho, and salt isn¡¯t good for wolves. So I¡¯m not sure I¡¯ll do it all the time. Actually, the meatballs taste pretty good like that; I might ask Nat if we can make something like spaghetti, and make spaghetti and meatballs one of these days. In other news, Kimi is spending the night on lvl 97 tonight. She said that there wasn¡¯t any real point in going back, since we¡¯ll just be coming through tomorrow morning again anyways. Usually we just have Lewis one-shot ko us back home, so we can sleep in our own beds, but I guess Kimi¡¯s relationship with Y has progressed to the point that her bed isn¡¯t all that interesting any more. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Which is fine for now. I mean, kobolds are basically reptiles and have dragon heads, which raises some questions which I will absolutely never ask, but Kimi is ok with it, and that¡¯s all that matters. But if she decides to spend more and more time down there, and a player comes when she isn¡¯t around, that might be an issue. She¡¯s probably the most important shop owner out of all of us. Like, if Mika or Lilly stayed with the kobolds all the time, a player might show up and not notice they weren¡¯t there. But Kimi is like the first person all the players go to see. There wouldn¡¯t be time to get her back. But¡­ the players won¡¯t be showing up for another week or so. We have at least a week before we have to bring it up. Aya went down to the big floor alone to see if she could communicate with the ants, since they seem to be helping us. She isn¡¯t back yet, which is either really good or really bad. I hope the ants really are our friends. I don¡¯t think they¡¯re people like us, but they seem to be more intelligent than the spiders. Or maybe I just think that because they help us get through their floor. Oh, she just got back! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (7) Dear Diary, The flying ants are our friends! Aya was able to kinda communicate with them yesterday, and found out that they¡¯re a hive controlled by two people, Jack and Jill, and they have a queen controlled by a lady named Jenny. Jack and Jill control different parts of the bugs in a way that sounds super complicated, but I guess they make it work. Anyways, Lilly has a telepathy spell that she cast on them so they could talk to her today. She said that they say they¡¯re super bored, and want to help us because they have nothing better to do. Which, we get that. I mean, we¡¯re basically doing the same thing for Staab. So anyways, we went with them down to lvl 99, and got them to spread out looking for the yetis. Turns out the yetis have a little camp in the corner of the floor. There are fifteen of them. They attacked us immediately. I guess they¡¯re not used to visitors. I¡¯m in favor of talking to them, to see if they¡¯ll stop attacking us and instead help us find the exit. Aya and Lilly are on my side. Mika, Kimi and Staab want to ambush them and kill them, so the yetis know who¡¯s stronger and leave us alone. Lilly pointed out that they kinda want to leave us alone anyways, and only killed us because we surprised them. Kimi said that any time we see them they¡¯ll try to kill us, so we should kill them first, then try to talk to them. I said I¡¯d like to at least be able to try giving them an ice cream cake before we murder them again. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. It¡­ It¡¯s a whole thing. I don¡¯t know. But hey, at least the ants are our friends now. I just¡­ I just like it when everyone is friends, y¡¯no? Anyways, Mika, beautiful genius that she is, figured out that with snow we can make ramps for marbles! So instead of just having one marble go around and around a track, we can make things like jumping competitions! We tried the first one today, with four marbles each. Lilly¡¯s marbles had the overall farthest jumping distance. I had one marble go super far, but the rest were all average, so I got bronze. Meaning I¡¯m back in the championship bronze spot. Oh well. We spent a couple hours after that talking about how to make ramps and what we could do with them. Kimi wants to try a high jump contest, while Aya thinks having a jump be a part of a race would be super fun. Kimi and Mika spent a long time drawing up diagrams and doing math. Me and Aya watched (and made hot cocoa) but we didn¡¯t really have much to add. I¡¯m bad at both math and drawing, but I like to see my friends get excited about things. Lilly and Staab were off doing Lilly and Staab things. So, it¡¯ll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of days. With the marbles, and with the yetis. I hope everything goes well. I hate waiting to find out. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (8) The yetis had decided, by anonymous vote, to continue attacking the catgirls and their hobgoblin leader. But for one vote it would have been a tie. As such, seven of the yetis were not happy about having to fight, but they respected the law of majority. Providing that the catgirls and hobgoblin kept coming down, a second vote would be taken at the end of the week. It seemed that they came down every other day, at about eleven in the morning. And so, on October 16th, at ten in the morning, the yetis went to the entrance of their floor and waited, weapons ready. They were not prepared for what came through the gate. ***** Dear Diary, We got to talk to the yetis! We gave them calzones and ice cream cake, which they liked. They¡¯re kinda weird, very formal. They even have an actual year calendar, which I think is super weird, since we and the kobolds only go by cycles. They have a strict democracy system going, which, whatever works for them. I would hate it if we¡¯d decided at the beginning that one of us had to be the ¡°leader¡±, and that we always had to vote on things. I mean, we just do our jobs, do what we want, and get along fine. And the kobolds, they don¡¯t really have jobs, but Lewis the dragon is leader by default, and any problems they have are taken to him. They live their lives, same as us, and everything¡¯s fine. But these guys, holy crap. There are fifteen of them, and I guess they vote on everything. They¡¯d voted to keep attacking us, but when we¡­ Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Ok so, Kimi told Y that we weren¡¯t sure what to do about the yetis, and he suggested we get a big group of kobolds, and try going down there. The yetis would see they couldn¡¯t win a straight fight, and would talk. Or, if they did fight, we¡¯d just kill all but one of them and tie that one up to talk to. So he got a couple of his friends to join, and Mika got her band to join, and I got Nat to join, and Nat knew who of the kobolds wanted to see more floors and got them to join, and by the end we had like a hundred kobolds with us. And the flying ants. So we went down in a big group, and the yetis kinda freaked out and tried to run away, but we chased them down saying we only wanted to be friends. They didn¡¯t believe us until Nat and I brought out the calzones. So we talked, they¡¯re weird, and they told us that the ice canyon appeared this cycle. They said that the door moved, and is now at the bottom of the canyon, so Aya was right. Apparently the yetis sent an expedition down to get to the door, but they got killed by the frost bats and gave up. They said they were going to think about it and vote on whether or not they¡¯ll help us get through their floor. So we parted on good terms, climbed down into the canyon with the kobolds, and were swarmed by bats. The bats have two main attacks, biting and pulling. The bite leaves frostbite around the fang marks, but it doesn¡¯t poison or anything. Just hurts. But the pulling is pulling us off the cliff and dropping us so we fall to our deaths. I died pretty early. Mika was the last of us to die, since she isn¡¯t affected by cold. Being the blue one has its perks. She said that like thirty kobolds made it to the ground, and it¡¯s super hard to see down there. So we¡¯ll have to figure out a way of clearing the fog. She said that she was killed by a big white tiger lion leopard thing without eyes. And she bets that none of the kobolds survived, but we¡¯ll find out tomorrow. We aren¡¯t sure what happened to the ants. They¡¯re so small, and become basically invisible in the fog. I guess they were eaten by bats? We¡¯ll find that out tomorrow, too, when Aya goes to talk to them. She likes the ants. Which, it¡¯s good that at least one of us really likes the ants, so they stay our friends. Anyways, I have to make meatballs for the dire wolves for tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (9) Dear Diary, Item one: the yetis are weird. Item two: the ants were eaten by bats. Item three: I don¡¯t like bats. Item four: marble jumps are cool. Item five: I think that¡¯s about it. Kimi said I should make a list of things I want to talk about in my diary before I write, to organize my thoughts and so I don¡¯t forget anything. So yep, let¡¯s see if this works. The yetis are weird. Like seriously. Super weird. Only one of them is allowed to talk at a time, and they indicate that they¡¯ll be talking by raising their hand. If we did that, Kimi and I would have killed each other like twenty cycles ago. And any decisions they make, have to be voted on. Like, I asked if anyone wanted the last slice of pizza, and they discussed it as a group. But, they decided to stand at the edge of the canyon and shoot at bats while we climbed down, so I shouldn¡¯t complain. Oh! That brings me to item two! The flying ants! They keep getting eaten by bats. Apparently when one gets killed, the hive mind thing they have going on notices, but they don¡¯t feel it. They don¡¯t know if the individual bugs feel anything, but they doubt it. They respawn back with the queen at midnight, or when the last one dies. So as long as one flying ant survives, they¡¯re with us. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it So we decided to have one ant on each of us while we climb down. Because the ants are cool and help us without asking for anything. Mine stays hidden in the floof at the end of my tail. Aya and Kimi¡¯s stay in their hoodie hoods, Mika and Lilly¡¯s stay up by their ears (I tried that, but couldn¡¯t stand a bug in my hair). Staab and Y¡¯s stay in their pockets. Oh yeah! So, this isn¡¯t on the list of things to talk about because I forgot, but Y is coming with us now. I think he mostly just wants to spend more time with Kimi, but he finds everything fascinating. When he¡¯s really interested in something he touches the bridge of his nose, and Kimi says it¡¯s because he used to wear glasses. Which, that¡¯s cute. I like Y, he¡¯s a good guy. But next item, I don¡¯t like bats. They¡¯re not as bad as slimes, but they¡¯re more¡­ aggressive? The slimes aren¡¯t smart about how they attack, because they don¡¯t have to be. The bats, tho, they think about how to attack, and attack in pairs. We¡¯re going to try teleporting next time, and see if that helps. Lastly, marble jumps are super cool! The marbles go down, picking up speed, then go up, nyoom, and fly through the air to the next part of the track. Which, we¡¯ve been using tiny portal things to get the marbles back to the top of the tracks, but jumps work just as good and are three times as cool. We have to find some way of dismantling the tracks that Mika has so we can add jumps to them, because it¡¯s too cool not to. Plus, it¡¯s cool because it¡¯s made out of snow. Hah, cold pun. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (10) Dear Diary, The dire wolves can follow us!!! That needs more exclamation marks. The dire wolves!!! Can follow us!!!!!!!!! There we go. Yeah! One of them tried to follow us through the gate again, made it, got to the water level, and we were able to teleport far enough that the wolf didn¡¯t have to eat a wallclimbing potion! He almost attacked the kobolds, but didn¡¯t. The kobolds love the wolf. They want us to bring the rest of the pack down, which, that¡¯s fine with us. They don¡¯t want us to leave with the wolves tho, which is fine until the players come through and find no enemies on lvl 94. But who cares about them, when we can have a kobold/hobgoblin/catgirl/dire wolf race? And then brush the wolves to make them super fluffy, and give them lots of food to make them active and happy. I think some of the kobolds are building a sled, to see if the wolves make good sled dogs. If they are, we¡¯ll go down to the yeti level and have a sled race. We¡¯re going to name the dire wolves now. We haven¡¯t before, because we only saw them for a couple minutes a day, but now they¡¯re basically going to be our pets, so they need names. We copied the yetis kinda, and made a suggestion box for names. If any name comes up more than once, it¡¯ll be used for a wolf. If too many names are doubled, Lewis the dragon will decide which names to use. And if there aren¡¯t enough doubled names, Lewis will decide then, too. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Oh, I forgot to do that itemizing thing that Kimi told me to do last time. Oh well, I wasn¡¯t too crazy about it anyways. Maybe it works for her, but I just want to write about whatever comes to mind, you know? Momomo isn¡¯t doing too well in the races. He doesn¡¯t do well on the jumps. But we¡¯ve been doing team competitions, so it isn¡¯t as bad as it could be. Lilly passed me, so I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll get a championship medal this cycle. I¡¯m always sad about that, but it isn¡¯t the end of the world. I¡¯ll survive. And now I can race for the joy of every race, instead of to win something big. It¡¯s not like we have actual medals or anything. I think Aya and Kimi keep track, but Mika and Lilly don¡¯t. It¡¯s not all that important to them. Mika is getting pretty good with her guitar. It¡¯s not like she was bad before or anything, but now she¡¯s really really good. She practices every day, in her home or with the band, and she can play a whole bunch of songs. She says she¡¯s starting to miss drawing, but not too much since she only has blue to work with. I think I get that, it¡¯s kinda like not having flour to work with. Something so basic that I never thought about it until I didn¡¯t have it any more. I might see if she can paint with ketchup or mustard, since they don¡¯t change colors. It might work, but would be pretty gross. It¡¯d smell bad after a while, I think. But, never hurts to ask. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (11) Dear Diary, I made it down to the floor of the ice canyon for the first time today! It¡¯s really dark and spooky down there. The fog eats all sound while making everything echo, I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s some magic involved in that. Like, if I talk, the words get muted. But if I kick a rock while walking, I¡¯m pretty sure you can hear that for miles. It¡¯s creepy The big tiger things, they¡¯re white but have markings that start as stripes but become dots like halfway down, move silently. Because they¡¯re cats. So all you hear is when they attack someone and that person screams Staab has a surprisingly high-pitched scream. It¡¯s kinda funny. His voice is pretty deep, so to have a scream like a five year old girl was not something I expected. I would have laughed at him if I wasn¡¯t running for my life from the tiger things. Lilly had died already, I wonder if she knows¡­ For some reason I think not asking her about it is a good idea. They aren¡¯t subtle about being in a relationship, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen them touch beyond holding hands. Whatever they do in private, it¡¯s private. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. As opposed to Kimi, who basically turns herself into Y¡¯s scarf. Anyways, the dire wolves have names now. The leader is Bear, and the rest are Linda, Floofles, Balto, Siri, and Wolfie McWolfpants. We probably should have decided on a theme for names before asking a couple hundred people for names, but I kinda love the randomness. Siri is my favorite wolf. She¡¯s a good girl. The kobolds made a sled and tried to get the wolves to get into the harness, and only Balto figured out what the heck they were trying to do. So maybe by next cycle Balto will have convinced the others that the harness is a fun thing. Nat and I spent basically all day cooking for the wolves. She doesn¡¯t have access to hamburger or any other kind of beef, so I gave her a whole bunch. And then, since we were cooking with hamburger anyways, we made burgers for everyone. And then, since everyone had burgers and fluffy wolves to play with, they turned it into a party. Mika¡¯s band played a couple new songs, and it was great. The kobolds really know how to party. A part of me wishes I could stay with them all the time, but I know I would miss my calm, quiet restaurant eventually. Because as fun as hanging out with Nat is, I really do like the other catgirls. We¡¯re friends. We¡¯re a group with only two things in common, but that¡¯s enough. I¡¯ve learned so much from them, and if we¡¯d started out with the kobolds I don¡¯t think we would have become friends. I wonder if the tiger things like meatballs. I should make some for them before going to sleep¡­ Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (12) Dear Diary, So, it¡¯s been a couple days¡­ Like five¡­ Sorry. The tigers don¡¯t want food from me. I tried a couple different things, and nothing worked. We decided we have to kill them, and found out that fire works super well. I guess they¡¯re made partially out of snow and ice, so they die really fast if they get blasted with heat. I prefer just putting them to sleep, but to do that I have to survive long enough after teleporting for my magic to recharge. Still, yesterday most of us got to the door. So next cycle I think we¡¯ll get through pretty quick. Yeah, next cycle. Today a group of players showed up, early in the morning. They stopped at my restaurant first thing and ordered a big meal, so Mika and Lilly ran down to the kobolds to get Kimi and the wolves back where they all belong. We weren¡¯t expecting the players for another day or two, but honestly I kinda forgot about the players. Aya has been hanging out with the flying ants a lot. She says the spiders on their level are guarding something, and she wants to find out what. Her lightning spell is a pretty good AOE spell, but she isn¡¯t that good with individual targets, so Mika made her a halberd thing that can be electrified. We asked if she wanted help, but she declined. Said that Mika has her band, Kimi has Y, Lilly has Staab, I have Nat, and she has her ants. We¡¯ve all found our people. She still wants to hang out with us and announce for the marble races, but when we hang out with our kobold friends she wants to hang out with her ant friends. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Which, I get, it¡¯s totally fair. She¡¯s shy, really. Unlike Lilly, who¡¯s just an introvert and doesn¡¯t like people in general. Anyways, the players, they showed up and put a stop to all our socializing. Last cycle I was annoyed. This time I¡¯m kinda really mad. I know it¡¯s not fair to them, they¡¯re just doing what they¡¯re supposed to, but¡­ we have lives now! We didn¡¯t even have time to finish the marble races! We have one left, which we¡¯ll do as soon as the players leave. I¡¯m so not going to get a championship medal, by the way. Only Kimi is behind me. But, the faster the players get through, the faster the cycle will restart, and the faster I¡¯ll get new ingredients. So I have that to look forward to. One of the players in the group is Ox, who I think I¡¯ve mentioned before? He comes through a lot, he¡¯s a good player. He¡¯s¡­ Ok so, the players apparently get to change their race each cycle. This cycle, Ox is a catboy. A catboy with a six pack. Apparently the boho necklace thing he wears is stupidly good magical armor, and would be nullified if he wore anything else on his upper body. Kimi says that if a girl had it, it would turn into a bikini top. Both of us are hoping that¡¯s an item she gets in her shop next cycle. Even if we do live on a snow level now. I¡¯ll adapt. Anyways. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 24 (13) Dear Diary, Apparently our floor has become a respawn point for players. The respawn point was a couple levles above us before. They respawn in the¡­ So, our shops are arranged in a circle, around a little plaza thing. The players respawn into the center of the plaza. Aya and Mika put a chair in the exact middle, and a player respawned on top of it. And then fell off and broke his arm. Mika and Lilly thought that was hilarious. I moved the chair. It¡¯s kind of weird to think about people having trouble getting through the levels. I mean, we can get down to the kobolds in like twenty minutes now. We barely even notice the sharks, and the slimes are little more than an annoyance. In the back of my mind I know they used to be a big deal, like the bats and tigers are now. But they aren¡¯t any more, which makes Aya and Lilly wonder how strong we are compared to the players. Staab came down this morning so we could finish the marble races. He got bronze in the championship. I didn¡¯t get any medal. But just when we finished a player came through the entrance, and we had to run back to our shops before she saw the track and Staab. As far as I know, Staab is still hiding in Lilly¡¯s room. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Mika and I got the track back into her place while the player was at Kimi¡¯s shop. Ox was one of the people who¡¯s respawned here. Apparently when players are in a group, they can cast a spell and instantly travel to wherever a group member is. So when he died in the slime maze, three of his four teammates came back and had lunch before they went down to attack the kobolds. I almost asked if they could take some pizza dough down to Nat, but then realized they¡¯d have to just leave it somewhere on the floor, since they¡¯re going to kill all the kobolds. And Lewis. Actually, I wonder if they know what the spiders are guarding. If they do, they can tell Aya. Solo players don¡¯t clear levels, but groups usually try to, so they might know. If one of them dies on the bug or yeti level I¡¯ll ask if they know. Oh, one of the things the players have are magical rocks that basically act like phones. Kimi is super hoping to get those in her inventory next cycle, so she can leave one with Y. And I¡¯ll leave one with Nat. And Lilly will leave one with Staab, if he ever leaves. Aaaand Mika can leave one with her band, and I guess Aya can leave one with the ants? Not sure if that would work, though, since all they do is buzz. A group of players just came into my restaurant, so I have to go. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 25 (1) Announcement to all players: This being the 25th Cycle, the Admin will be revising things and attempting to fix all the minor issues that have cropped up. If you have any complaints, now is the time to voice them, before leaving the first floor. If this causes any problems, report them and be assured they are temporary. The first issue that was addressed: levels now only refers to stats. Levels as in floors are now floors. Officially. ***** Dear Diary, I HAVE BREAKFAST THINGS NOW!!!! FINALLY!!!!! It¡¯s a new cycle, so I got new stuff. AND ONE OF THE THINGS I GOT WAS EGGS!!! I didn¡¯t get flour, but I got pancake mix (which is pretty basic and can probably be used for all kinds of things), and biscuit mix. The biscuit mix has a lot of baking soda and powder in it, so they poof up super high. As biscuits they¡¯re pretty good, super good with gravy, but I gave a couple boxes to Nat, and I can¡¯t wait to see if she can figure out what else to do with them. We tried turning them into some kind of pastry crust, but it¡¯s too salty. Actually, it might make pretty good empanadas. Which I would absolutely love, but I¡¯m not sure the girls would be too thrilled that I figured out something new to do with cheese. Especially now that I have eggs and sausages. And three types of jam. And- OH I GOT TEA!! Herbal tea. So chamomile, lemongrass, ¡°forest berries¡±, and mint. That¡¯s right: mint. I haven¡¯t had the time to boil a whole bunch down into a concentrate so I can put it in milkshakes, but that¡¯s absolutely something I¡¯m going to be doing. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I used to be allergic to chamomile, and I kinda wonder if I still am. A part of me doesn¡¯t want to try it, because getting sick and not being able to breathe is horrible. But on the other hand, I might not even be allergic any more. Besides, what¡¯s it going to do, kill me? Hah. Kimi got those necklace bikini armor things in her shop. They¡¯re stupid expensive, but they come in colors! The red one is resistant to cold, so I tried to get it, and Kimi got an error message. She said the only ones I would be able to buy would be the white one (which is just basic with no bonuses or resistances), or the green one (which is resistant to poison). Huh, I¡¯ve been using parentheses a lot today. Weird. So anyways I got the white one. Because at least it¡¯s not green, and we don¡¯t fight anything with poison anyways. I mean, the ants have poison, but thanks to Aya we don¡¯t ever fight them. And, I guess, thanks to the fact that they don¡¯t want to fight. Kimi got the red one. Oh, she also got sending stones in her shop, so we got a bunch. They¡¯re sold in pairs, which makes it convenient. I gave one to Nat. And then Lewis saw them and asked what else Kimi had in her shop, and the kobolds spent like all morning buying things from her. She was mostly fine with that, but by the time Nat and I called everyone for lunch (yeah, we had another party) I could tell Kimi was ready to hang out with just Y. But yeah, the kobolds got a whole bunch of cool stuff, and Aya was kind of worried about it. She muttered something about breaking the balance of the dungeon, and went to visit the ants. I¡­ I get it, kinda, but I think she¡¯s worrying too much. I mean, they¡¯re a horde of kobolds on floor 97. They¡¯re supposed to be hard for the players to kill. A couple fireball casters and +1 armor wearers aren¡¯t going to break anything. Oh yeah, the Admin changed the floors to be floors, they were levels before, but that was confusing, so it¡¯s less confusing now. Yep. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 25 (2) Dear Diary, We were so close to getting through floor 99 today! Only Lilly died, but since we¡¯ve decided to only go through as a group we had to let the last tiger kill us all. She was kind of upset, but would have been more upset if we¡¯d gone down without her. Actually¡­ I¡¯m not sure if I should write this, but Y went down. He doesn¡¯t come back to the same floor as us, so he thought no one would notice. But Kimi called him on the sending stone, and he told her. And then she told me, because apparently there¡¯s a venomous dragon down there, and she asked if I wanted to change my bikini from white to green. I decided to. Oh yeah, the bikini top is stupidly great armor. Before, the bats bit us and it hurt, but now they bite and we don¡¯t even feel it. Which made us realize that we probably should have bought armor before now. We¡­ Yeah, I never said I was the smartest catgirl on the floor, but the fact that I was one of the first two to buy armor makes me feel smart. We probably should have bought armor at the very beginning, we might not have died quite as much. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. And I would have expected Mika to be the one to suggest armor, or maybe Kimi because she sells it, but not Kimi and me just because it¡¯s super cute. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. In other news, eggs are an amazing ingredient. Having them is wonderful. The pancake mix can be turned into pretty good muffins. One of the jams I got was blackberry, and it has actual blackberry pieces in it, so Nat figured out how to get the blackberries out of the jam, and then we made blackberry muffins. They¡¯re sweeter than I¡¯d like them to be, but that¡¯s a problem for another day. The first batch we made turned out super stupidly sweet, to the point that we couldn¡¯t eat them. Instead of throwing them away Nat suggested I take them down to the ants. So when it was time to head home instead of having Lewis incinerate me I ran down a level and gave the ants a basket of muffins. They loved them. I guess they don¡¯t really have much food on their floor, because Aya said they¡¯re willing to eat anything. I¡¯ll have to keep bringing them stuff to eat. I wonder how much they¡¯d like calzone¡­ This cycle, instead of doing one marble races, we¡¯re doing teams of four. First marble to get to the finish line wins, but the speed of every single marble affects championship position. So if one goes super fast but the other three are near the back of the pack, that¡¯s overall bad. This way we don¡¯t have to just race every day, we can do jumping competitions and stuff like that, too. We drew on the marbles to differentiate them. My team this cycle is the Momos: Mimo, Memo, Mamo, and team captain Mumo. All we¡¯ve done are the prelims, but I have a good feeling about this team. Go Momos! Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 25 (3) Dear Diary, Yep, the ants will eat pretty much anything. We- Oh! I forgot to mention that the dire wolves are back with the kobolds, and are learning how to pull sleds. At the moment all they¡¯re pulling are little carts with wheels, but that¡¯s close enough. All of the wolves except Wolfy McWolfpants are used to the harness now. Hopefully by next week we can take them down to the yeti¡¯s floor and see if they can sled race. Some of the kobolds don¡¯t want to take the wolves down, because to get them back up they have to die and be brought down by us. And they don¡¯t want the wolves to associate traveling between floors with pain. I get it, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯ll happen. When all the wolves are good at pulling carts we¡¯ll bring it up with Lewis, and get him to decide. He¡¯s pretty smart, and likes the wolves. Aaaanyways, yeah, Nat and I made a ¡°cake¡± out of a couple layers of pancakes, jam, fried eggs, milkshake syrup, and sausage. Like, all that, five times over. We took it down to the ants to see if they¡¯d eat it. They devoured it. It was gone in like, two minutes. And then they asked for more. So we gave them a whole bunch of random things out of our inventories, and they spent an hour doing nothing but eating. Then they had to go back to their hive, which is in a secret place that even Aya hasn¡¯t been to. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. While they were away we talked with Aya, and decided to help her try to kill all the spiders. When the ants got back we went to the spider¡¯s tunnels. And holy crap, Aya has gotten good at using her halberd. It has a switch to activate the electricity, and she has the timing on turning it on and off down to perfection. I mostly hung back to heal her and Nat. Nat is pretty good at attacking with her knives, she¡¯s a floor 97 kobold after all, she¡¯s a decently high-level fighter. But Aya has way more¡­ finesse. I think Aya used to be a gymnast, she knows how to use her weight to balance. And with her stupidly long hair crackling with electricity as she spins around, she turns spider killing into a work of art. I wish I were that cool. Anyways, we killed all the spiders, and it turns out they¡¯re guarding a loot box of high-class armor and weapons. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s for the player¡¯s benefit rather than that the spiders really like that box. But, since there were three of us who killed the spiders, there were three sets of armor. I have armor, and Nat doesn¡¯t need any, so Aya used two sets to bet in poker and kept the coolest one. Mika already won one, and it turned into sheets of ice when it became hers, instead of boring scale mail. It looks epic. Oh, Nat took most of the weapons for the kobolds to fight over (I think literally), but I kept a staff that¡¯s supposed to buff non-combat spells. It¡¯s four feet tall and has a giant emerald on the end. Originally it had a piece of amber, but when I took it it turned into an emerald. Because everything I own has to be green. In case literally anyone has forgotten. I can¡¯t wait to see how far I can teleport tomorrow. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 25 (Admin) The Admin worked night and day. Out of habit he pulled iced coffee after iced coffee from his inventory. He never felt tired, didn¡¯t need caffeine to keep him awake, but the cold tannin-filled liquid brought him a small measure of joy. He¡¯d been watching the players crawl through his dungeon time and again for months now. Enough months to almost be years. As he looked through the list of complaints, he could tell which ones really needed fixing. Floor 17 was too big. It¡¯s a floor of dinosaurs, it had to be that big. Fixing not required. Too many goblins on floor 8. It was the first boss floor. Of course there were lots of goblins on it. But just to say he¡¯d fixed it, he took off one of the goblins. The sirens on floor 23 were pacifists. Yeah, that was an issue. Those mermaids were far more interested in singing than attacking. Sure, their voices were hypnotic, so players would die of starvation listening to them, but that wasn¡¯t fun. He put the homeless gobbo there, turning her into a siren, and took one of the sirens out. For good measure he added in a couple low-level eels, and set their agro area to overlap the siren¡¯s area. The ant swarms didn¡¯t drop any loot. Their queens dropped more gold than they were worth, so not really an issue. Marbles are useless. Next cycle he was releasing a slingshot, and marbles gained magical properties based on their color when used as ammo. When cycle 50 came around the slingshots could be upgraded to marble-firing crossbows. Actually¡­ He set the flying ants to drop one marble each upon death, and reduced the queen to drop +1 slingshots, one per group member. There. The ghost catgirls are creepy and boring. Yeah, he¡¯d run out of girls for the position of catgirl, and had tried to split one. Didn¡¯t work. But hey, there was now a jobless siren! He took the split catgirl, un-split her, and put her at the inn on floor 60. Then he took the siren, changed race to catgirl, assigned orange color, and put her at the inn on floor 93.
ERROR: Catgirl color [orange] already on this floor. Please assign new color.
Since convincing the system that there wasn¡¯t an orange catgirl on floor 93 any more would take more effort than he wanted to put in, he changed her color to¡­ silver? Sure, silver. Why not.
Please assign name.
He grumbled, fingers hovering over his keyboard. He hated naming people. Sil¡­ ver¡­ vi¡­ a¡­ sylvia¡­ via¡­ Via. Sure. Via could be a name. He¡¯d named one of the girls on that floor Aya, hadn¡¯t he? So it fit. Moving right along. The door on floor 99 was too hard to find. Well that was the point. The door on floor 79 was impossible to reach without magic. Also the point. One of the-
Players have entered final floor.
The Admin sat up. No they hadn¡¯t. He swiped away the notification, bringing up his bird¡¯s eye view of floor 100. The dragon slept near the north edge of the room, covered in gold like Smaug. A maze of trails snaked through piles of gold, most leading to dead ends. If even one coin was touched, the dragon would wake. Near the entrance, arguing about which trail to take, were five catgirls, a hobgoblin, a kobold, and a handful of flying ants. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The Admin cursed, pulling up the specs for exits and entrances. When players had started choosing less human-like races, some exits hadn¡¯t allowed them to pass. So he¡¯d cheated by lowering the exit barrier, and told them to just go over it. A few NPC¡¯s had figured it out, but the only ones to seriously try going through the floors had been this group. He¡¯d figured they wouldn¡¯t get to the final floor for at least another week. Sure, the kobold had gotten through a couple days ago, but he¡¯d immediately grabbed a gem. The dragon vaporized him within a minute. How did the group go from a near TPK to all getting through? Eh, not important. He set the barriers back up to max, keeping an eye on the group as they split up. He reconfigured the exits to check for¡­ Hell. There wasn¡¯t a single trait the players had that wasn¡¯t shared by an NPC. Other than ¡°player¡±, which the doors were already supposed to be allowing through. He¡¯d just have to give the players keys, and figure out a way to make sure they never lost them. He got to work configuring a key, typing with more urgency than he¡¯d done in months as the hobgoblin got closer and closer to the button platform. He found a basic old-fashioned key shape, imported it, changed it to¡­ diamond? No, gems were already a thing. What was that thing people did to steel to make it rainbow? The hobgoblin found the platform and started back towards the group, so the name didn¡¯t matter. Rainbow steel it was. Apply changes, add to inventory of everyone who enters floor 1, accept, change barriers to allow everyone with this key to pass. Apply changes. Crisis averted. The group reconvened. After a brief conversation, they carefully followed the hobgoblin down the trail to the button platform. Not a single coin was touched along the way. Soon they were all standing in the middle of the platform, examining the identical buttons. One by one they turned to the yellow catgirl, who was frowning at the floor. ¡°Well? Which one is it?¡± Ah, so the yellow one was the ¡°spy¡±. ¡°I¡­¡± ¡°You have to know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think we should do this.¡± She looked around nervously, judging the reactions of her friends. ¡°Like hell!¡± ¡°You should have mentioned that before now.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± She moved closer to the green one. ¡°I have a bad feeling. We shouldn¡¯t push the button. We aren¡¯t players. It¡¯s not our place.¡± The Admin smiled, sitting back. He was glad at least one of them was self-aware. His hand hovered over the key''s delete button, waiting for them to leave. ¡°Ok.¡± ¡°Fair,¡± the kobold said, shrugging. ¡°Not fair! We worked hard to get here! I¡¯m taking more than bragging rights.¡± The hobgoblin moved in front of the yellow one. ¡°Aya. Tell me which button it is, or I will press every single one until I get it right.¡± The purple one took his hand. ¡°Same.¡± The Admin sighed, dropping his hand. The key would stay. ¡°No. And I¡¯m not coming down again. We shouldn¡¯t be here.¡± ¡°Fine then, stay with the bugs. The four of us can get through on our own. We don¡¯t need you any more.¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± ¡°Five,¡± the kobold said, shrugging again. They looked at him. ¡°What, only three can push the button anyway. If it means I get to watch Kim fight a dragon, I¡¯m in.¡± ¡°What we¡¯re trying to say is, we¡¯re doing this. No matter what. So you might as well tell us.¡± The yellow one sighed, shook her head, and pointed. The hobgoblin strode over, looked at her defiantly, and pressed the button. A wave of magic went out, up through the dungeon, alerting all the players that the button had been pushed. The purple catgirl pushed the button, sending out more magic. The blue and red catgirls looked at each other, grinned, and ran for the button. They laughed, shoving and pushing as their hands reached for the button. The hobgoblin stepped back as the catgirls launched themselves at the pedestal, the blue one¡¯s longer limbs letting her finger touch the button half a second before her rival. A third wave of magic went out, resetting everything to their default places.
Cycle 26 has begun.
Cycle 26 (1) Dear Diary, We got to floor 100 yesterday. With my new staff I can teleport three times as far as before, and the cooldown for spells is half of what it was, so I can heal everyone back up to max HP almost faster than they can lose any. The armor is really helpful, too. The floor is covered in gold and gems, like, mountains of them! I saw the nose of the dragon who guards them, and she¡¯s huge! I¡¯d say maybe twice as big as Lewis? I¡¯m not sure, because I didn¡¯t see all of her. She was sleeping under a pile of gold. Anyways, we found the buttons. Aya said not to push any, that we should just leave. And I mean, it¡¯s her job to know things. So I was on her side. But Staab and Kimi were both super insistent that she tell, and then Lilly, Mika and Y said they¡¯d all keep coming down until they pushed the end button, and everyone was mad at Aya, so she told them which one it was. They pushed it. Well, Staab pushed it first, Lilly second, and Mika and Kimi both say they pushed it third. I think they pushed it at the same time. So yeah. The cycle ended, they were all happy about it, and we were going to celebrate as soon as Staab got down. But he never came. Kimi went to check the exit after a couple hours, and she couldn¡¯t get through. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. So we¡¯re stuck here again. On floor 93. All by ourselves. Lilly is upset. She spent all day waiting at the entrance for Staab to come down. She tried teleporting through the barrier and knocked herself out for a couple minutes. It''s fine, she woke up, but she¡¯s still there, crying. Aya is mad. She says that by pushing the button we pissed off the Admin, so he trapped us here to make sure we couldn¡¯t get down to the last floor again. She¡¯s been sulking in her house all day, and made a huge banner that says ¡°I told you so¡±. Mika is¡­ She¡¯s been writing music. I can¡¯t tell how she feels, since some of the guitar sounds have been happy, some mad, some sad. Kimi is super upset. She¡¯s been screaming at the exit, throwing things at it, trying to burn it down¡­ I¡¯m kinda worried about her, actually. I¡¯m sad, but we survived alone here for twenty cycles. We can do it again. And maybe we can talk the Admin into letting us through. Hopefully. I don¡¯t know. But anyways, since I was the only one this morning at her shop, I was the only one to meet Via! Via is our new catgirl, she¡¯s replaced Dorothy at the inn. Her color is silver. It looks grey to me, but she insists it¡¯s silver. She used to be a siren on floor 23, but they didn¡¯t like fighting, so she thinks the Admin broke the group up to get new sirens in who would attack. She didn¡¯t stay long, just long enough to eat a pizza with me. I explained about how everyone was upset, and she said she didn¡¯t want to meet everyone when they were mad. Which I totally get. So she went back to the inn to remodel it and get used to having legs again. I didn¡¯t tell her about the marble races¡­ I¡¯ll make some hot cocoa and take it to her to tell her about the marble races. Goodnight, dungeon.
Cycle 26 (2) Dear Diary, We still can¡¯t get through the barrier. Kimi has been sitting in the snow in front of the exit for three days now, glaring at it. I¡¯ve taken her coffee and soup a couple times, and she hasn¡¯t said anything to me. She barely even reacted when I told her about Via. Aya was the first one to notice that the inn looked different. She came over while I was there having lunch with Via, and they get along well. While Via was showing Aya all the changes she¡¯d made to the inn, Lilly came in to see why everything was silver. So she¡¯s met Via, too. Yesterday Via came over and helped me make a big lunch, since she hasn¡¯t really had anything but sushi since cycle 1. Mika smelled all the food and finally came out of her shop, and was shocked to see a new catgirl in the kitchen. Since Via spent so long as a siren, she loves to sing. She¡¯s written a couple songs, and Mika is writing guitar music to go with the words. They get along super well, and want to be a mini-band since Via knows how to play drums. Via still has sushi in her inventory, and gave me a whole bunch. It¡¯s not complicated, just raw fish, rice, and seaweed. But that¡¯s three ingredients I didn¡¯t have before! I¡¯m pretty sure she has other things in her inventory, like maybe soy sauce and wasabi, but she¡¯s been having fun with Mika so I don¡¯t want to bug her about it yet. My message stone still works, so I¡¯ve been able to ask Nat what she thinks I can do with rice and fish. I have to figure out how to basically re-dry the seaweed before I can do anything with it, so I¡¯m focusing on the rice and fish for now. Nat says fishburgers are good, or else fish and chips. And so far all I¡¯ve done with the rice was mix it with scrambled eggs, but that was amazingly good. Sometimes food doesn¡¯t need to be complicated or expensive to be delicious. Simple things need to be appreciated from time to time. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Oh yeah, we all have our message stones still, so we aren¡¯t totally cut off from Staab and the kobolds. Mika has been chatting with her band, and it sounds like they love Via¡¯s singing. And Lilly says she talked with Staab, but won¡¯t say more than that. I took Kimi hers, so she can talk to Y, but I don¡¯t know if she¡¯s used it. We decided to keep going with the marble races from last cycle. Via is taking Staab¡¯s place, and tomorrow she¡¯ll send her marbles (she found a bunch in a drawer at the inn) through prelims. Plus doing prelims will help her figure out what¡¯s so cool about marble racing. Since we only had time to do one race, and Staab got silver, she¡¯s starting in the championship silver spot. Which, that¡¯s fitting. We¡¯ll start the races back up as soon as Kimi feels up for it. Hopefully that¡¯s soon. I¡¯m worried about her. Goodnight, dungeon.
Cycle 26 (3) Dear Diary, So, I finally made a detailed review of my inventory today, and found some really weird things. Well, pastry dough wasn¡¯t too odd, I can think of a million different things to do with that, but then I got duck egg yolks and something called lotus paste? I was trying to think what they were for when Lilly came in and immediately identified them as the ingredients for moon cakes. So I guess Chinese New Year is soon? We don¡¯t have a real calendar, and I haven¡¯t received any ingredients for, I don¡¯t know, gingerbread or anything, even though most of my menu items are distinctly American. So I¡¯m guessing we haven¡¯t passed Christmas, even though Lilly says Chinese New Year is after, erm, the other New Year. I don¡¯t know, a part of me wonders if this is what I get for asking for so many different ingredients. Like, I wanted more things and I got them! Now what do I do with them? I swear I didn¡¯t wish on any monkey paw. Although, if I did that, I¡¯d probably get something like cow stomach and sea salt licorice. At least I can use the pastry dough for lots of things, and the lotus paste is pretty good. I kind of want to try baking the egg yolks into a meatloaf, so those aren¡¯t a one-use item, either. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. In other news, Kimi finally stopped glaring at the exit and went back to her home. She hasn¡¯t come out yet, but at least she isn¡¯t sitting out in the cold. Mika took her some food this afternoon, and has been with her since then. I¡¯m¡­ cautiously optimistic about her? Still worried, but Mika will let us know if something is seriously wrong. Via ran her marbles through prelims, and she got a good team. Aya and I did a test race with her, and she won. So she¡¯s pretty excited about marble racing now. She agreed to the marble races at first mostly because we said it was what we did, but now she¡¯s totally on board. Oh yeah, none of us know what happened to Dorothy. We don¡¯t know if she was completely taken away, or if she¡¯s on another floor, or what. Via came from a different floor, so it¡¯s possible Dorothy is on a different floor. If she is, I hope she¡¯s better. I hope the Admin fixed whatever was wrong with her. I feel kinda bad that we just gave up on Dorothy after a while. After cycle three we kind of agreed to not talk about her, and ignore her as much as possible. Maybe if we¡¯d kept on complaining to the Admin he would have fixed her. I hope that someday we find out what happened to her. Maybe I can ask the Admin what happened to her. He doesn¡¯t reply directly to messages, but maybe he can figure out a way of letting us know what happened to her. If he isn¡¯t still mad at us for having pushed the end button. Actually, maybe it¡¯s best if I wait a cycle or two to ask¡­ Goodnight, dungeon.
Cycle 26 (4) Dear Diary, Sorry I haven¡¯t written in a week. Now that we¡¯re stuck here again not much has happened. Kimi is better. She¡¯s quieter than usual, but joins us for all the marble races. Not for all our meals, though. Her marble team is in the championship bronze spot, so she gets pretty invested in the races, which is good. My team is mostly good, but I have one marble that I think I¡¯m going to have to replace. He¡¯s consistently one of the last marbles to finish, meaning the other three marbles have to be in the top six for the team to get a medal. Actually, yeah, tomorrow I¡¯ll run a set of races to replace him. Life is too short to race with slow marbles. Anyways, Mika made Via a metal drum, and it sounds super cool. They play music every morning, and have a bunch of different songs. Aya writes poetry, and they¡¯ve asked her to help them with lyrics a couple times. Via can write lyrics and come up with basic tunes, but Mika is purely an instrument person. So she takes the basic tunes and turns them into something epic. It¡¯s cool to listen to, to hear how a song changes from the first basic drum rhythm into a full song with lyrics and multiple instruments. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. That just leaves Lilly, who has been helping me cook. She¡¯s not as excited about cooking as Nat, but she knows what she¡¯s doing and has nothing better to do sooo¡­ She has more experience with East Asian food than I do. Like, she knew that sushi rice has vinegar in it. Which is why it tastes kinda, well, vinegar-y. It¡¯s not a strong flavor, I couldn¡¯t put my finger on it until she told me, but once she said it I could tell. Via also has soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger in her inventory, and Lilly immediately knew like a dozen things to make with those. Oh, we were all around when Via pulled all the food out of her inventory. Aya, turns out, has never had sushi. Which means she didn¡¯t know what wasabi was. I guess she thought it was some kind of green tea or vegetable paste? She took a huge blob of it and popped it into her mouth before anyone could stop her. Her head almost exploded. Pretty sure that if her hair was short, it would have caught fire. She ran to the sink and spit it out, then shoved ice cream in her mouth to cool her tongue down. That gave her a brain freeze, so she curled up on the floor and cried for like ten minutes. I would have done the same. Anyways, Via has three types of sushi. Well, it¡¯s all the simple seaweed/rice/fish sushi, but there are three types of fish. The first two are tuna (not canned) and salmon, but I¡¯m not sure what the third one is. Lilly says it¡¯s sea bass, and I have no reason to doubt her. I would have killed for there to have been shrimp, or maybe crab, but I¡¯m not complaining. That¡¯s about it for now. Goodnight, dungeon.
Cycle 26 (5) On Floor 94, the dire wolves grew restless. Memories of good food and dragon-like bipeds playing with them faded. The old hierarchy reasserted itself as their fur grew dull and shaggy. They patrolled their territory daily, ready to attack anything that trespassed. * On Floor 95, the kraken slept. Sharks circled calmly in the water above her. She had peace. And yet, with that peace, came something unexpected. The calm waters had nothing to disturb them, and she was¡­ bored. * On Floor 96, the slimes rested. The air barely moved, and this was good. Not a single thing vibrated throughout the entire maze, which made them content. This was good. All was good. * On Floor 97, life continued on. The racers raced, the musicians played, Nat cooked with whoever needed grandmotherly advice, and Bonecrusher the Black made sure everyone got along fine. Y drew up blueprints for a catapult, and recruited people to help build it. No one said anything, but it was clear that something felt missing. They hoped it wouldn¡¯t stay missing long. * On Floor 98, the ants swarmed over the desert, searching for food. They were hungry. They were always hungry. But now there was a¡­ viciousness that hadn¡¯t been there before. They missed their friend, a grief which turned into anger, causing them to lash out at anything that got in their way. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. They found the trail of the gusanote, and lightning flashed in their eyes. Driven by pure emotion, against the warnings of their queen, they decided to attack. They were weak, but they were many. They would kill the worm, even if it took all cycle. * On Floor 99, the yetis decided, by anonymous vote, to move to the other side of the ravine. It seemed like a far more peaceful place to live. * And on Floor 100, surrounded by mountains of gold and gems, the platform with six buttons on it gathered dust. A dragon slept nearby, unaware of the passage of time. ***** Dear Diary, Again, it¡¯s been like a week, sorry! Kimi is better, mostly. She¡¯s been using fireballs to melt the snow off our roofs, which looks like a lot of fun. Lilly has been trying to figure out if any of her spells would allow her to go through either door, but hasn¡¯t had any success yet. She¡¯s not upset about failing, so that¡¯s good. Aya and Mika wrote out the rules to a couple games, and we¡¯ve been playing those a lot. With Via, of course. If it¡¯s a team game, I¡¯m always teamed with Aya. Via and Mika can basically communicate by tapping their nails on the table to make music, so they always play together. It¡¯s kind of cheating, but Aya and I don¡¯t mind. If we win, their cheating just makes our victory sweeter. And at this point we¡¯ve kind of learned what some of the music means. Like, in hearts, if Via taps a scale that goes up, that means she¡¯s going to try to shoot the moon. Or if Mika whistles the first eight notes in Ode to Joy, she has a good hand. It¡¯s fun. Which, we need something fun. Oh, Kimi just came in, I have to go. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 26 (6) Dear Diary, Aya suggested we fight each other, with weapons, so we don¡¯t get rusty. I pointed out that I never fought with weapons to begin with, and Via said she¡¯s a pacifist, but everyone else thought it was a great idea. So now I¡¯m learning how to hit people with my magic staff. Goodie. I guess I see the point. I mean, we don¡¯t spend nearly as much time on marble racing any more, since the tracks are already made, so we need something to do. Kimi and Aya were always the active ones, and I guess not running through three floors every day has left them with lots of extra energy. Mika and Lilly are competitive enough that if any contest at all is suggested, they¡¯re in. Via says that as a siren they attacked people with teeth and claws after hypnotizing them. But she didn¡¯t like biting people. Lilly took her aside to figure out what sort of magical potential she has, and says that she¡¯d be best at illusion magic. That¡¯s like, making doubles of yourself, or making it look like there¡¯s a giant dragon behind you. Pretty cool, but not combat magic. So Mika gave her every weapon in her shop, and found she¡¯s pretty good with spears and crossbows. That got everyone wondering what they were best at using, and if they could get more spells now that we¡¯re all better at magic. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Lilly had me learn a couple more green poison spells, so I can fight with more than just sleep. We can learn spells outside our color, like the teleport I use is a black spell, but we won¡¯t ever be as strong with them as with spells of our color. I guess all the players were asked what color magic they wanted to use when they became players. I wonder if they¡¯re given a list of spells when they choose. Probably. Anyways, there are a couple teleport spells, each slightly different. The black one is the only one that allows more than one person to teleport at a time, which is why Lilly taught me that one. It has the slowest recharge time, though. The silver one allows a person to teleport between copies of themselves, so if Via makes it look like there are eight of her, she can jump between them to be whichever one isn¡¯t being attacked. The yellow one goes in a straight line until it hits something, like lightning. And the red one only goes a few feet, but it has a stupidly low recharge time, so Kimi can attack someone from every angle almost faster than they can turn around. As far as weapons, I¡¯m going to stay with my staff even if I do better with other things. Mika calls it a ¡°bonk stick¡±, which I¡¯ll admit is pretty cute. Kimi, now that she has teleport, got a pair of lava daggers so she can do a lot of damage close up. Aya is best with her halberd, which she knew since she got it not too long ago. Lilly got a glass rapier. It works because of magic, I guess. Mika makes herself a new weapon like every week, and this week she has a pair of scimitars. And, of course, Via has her spear. I think I''m going to go practice with my bonk stick before heading to sleep. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 26 (7) ***** Dear Diary, The first of the players got here today. I know last cycle I was annoyed at them, but all that is gone. Funny how boredom changes your view of things. And yeah, I¡¯ve been bored. Not too bored, but we finished the marble races three days ago, and by that time I¡¯d made every combination of every food I have access to, so that just left cards and fighting. Cards are fun enough, but after like three hours it gets boring. Oh, my team almost got bronze, but we totally lost the final race, so Aya got bronze instead. She was pretty happy about it. I guess I¡¯m getting better at fighting, since my levels are slowly going up, but I still lose every fight. Well, no, I won one fight against Via. We both complain that we¡¯re support, we use healing spells and teleport and stuff, but Kimi and Aya say we should be able to hold our own in a fight. I understand the logic, but that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯ll ever not hate fighting. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Anyways, the players only stayed for a little bit, then continued down. They respawned within the hour, saying the dire wolves were super vicious. The last guy to respawn tried flying over them, and said that there are more spiders now. Which, we didn¡¯t know there were spiders on that floor. I guess they¡¯ve always been there, but stay near the ceiling or in the trees. That way if someone gets away from the wolves by going above them, they have to deal with giant spiders. It makes sense. I think it¡¯s kinda funny we never noticed, though. Well, Lilly says she noticed. She says that¡¯s why she never suggested we use wallclimbing potions, like we used for the sharks. I don¡¯t know if I believe her, though. The players bought meatballs from me, but the wolves attacked anyway. Maybe the wolves were switched? Or maybe they forgot about us? I¡¯m worried about them now. I mean, they aren¡¯t just dire wolves any more. They¡¯re Bear and Siri and Wolfie McWolfpants. ¡­And Balto, Floofles and Linda. My point is, we know them now. We¡¯re friends. If we get down there and find they¡¯ve forgotten us, I might cry. I kind of¡­ When we figured out we were stuck here, we were all upset, but I didn¡¯t think it was the end of the world. Not like Kimi or Lilly. I wasn¡¯t even as upset as Aya or Mika. But now I get it. I need to see the wolves again. I have to find out if they remember me. I won¡¯t say my happiness depends on it, but I¡¯m going to be worried about them until I see them again. I don¡¯t really have much more to say. Nothing¡¯s been happening. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 26 (8) Dear Diary, So, the, erm, the players can¡¯t pass floor 97. They keep complaining about how the kobolds have OP fire magic now. It¡¯s been kinda hard pretending that we have no clue why that would be. Pretty much all the players have ranted to me about it. I¡¯m worried, Aya is furious, and Lilly thinks it¡¯s hilarious. Kimi told Y that they need to stop using magic, and he said that if they stopped now people would think it¡¯s weird. So they can¡¯t. Which, I guess that makes sense, but it would be better if they stopped. Oh, the wolves have stopped attacking people who give them meatballs. So I¡¯m less worried about them. I hope they¡¯re ok. One group of players came through who are min-maxers. I don¡¯t really get it, but Kimi said that it¡¯s a way of playing where you focus on getting really good at one thing to the detriment of everything else. Which, erm, is kind of what we¡¯ve been doing. She says it¡¯s different, though. Anyways, this group has a catgirl who uses fire magic and close-range weapons. Kimi wrote down what spells she uses and is going to start practicing with them. Then there¡¯s an orc who has stupidly high defense. He¡¯s big enough that the rest of the group can hide behind him. Then there¡¯s an¡­ otter? He kinda looks like a giant otter. Anyways, he has water magic, and has a bunch of good AOE spells. Apparently there are a lot of water levels, and he gets bonuses in them from being an otter. Next is a flying vampire who uses a pair of crossbows. And lastly is an elf woman who uses charm magic and is the healer of the group. She has pink hair, so I guess pink magic is charm. Lilly says that charm magic is stupid strong, but only works on enemies that think, like the kobolds. It doesn¡¯t work on slimes or sharks. So it¡¯s only worth getting if you¡¯re in a group that can take care of lots of enemies without you. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Anyways, the min-maxers failed at getting past floor 97, and were really really mad about it. They complained a lot. They¡¯re a group that doesn¡¯t buy meatballs, so I didn¡¯t like them to begin with, but now I really don¡¯t like them. Plus they all ordered strawberry milkshakes. I kind of hope they get through fast, so that I don¡¯t have to deal with them again. The players like Via. A lot of them have been here before, so they remember Dorothy. They know what the inn used to look like, and are a lot happier with how it is now. We all are, really. I mean, Dorothy was nice, I don¡¯t want to talk bad about her, but having Via around is a whole lot better. And Via likes working at the inn. She says she feels better as a catgirl than she did as a siren, when she was expected to attack people. Anyways, I hope the kobolds don¡¯t get into trouble because we gave them magic. I¡¯d feel really bad about that. I hope the players get through soon. But not too soon, because then I¡¯ll be bored again. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 26 (9) Dear Diary, I guess everything below us is just super angry. Some players got through the kobolds, and were ripped to shreds by the ants. I kinda feel sorry for the players at this point. I mean, it¡¯s not their fault everything on the floors below us is different. We accidentally ruined everything, and I don¡¯t know how to fix any of it. Well, except the slimes are the same. And Ox (oh yeah, his group got here, he¡¯s an otter guy now) said that the kraken is easier to fight now. So just the wolves, kobolds and ants are harder to beat. No one has gotten to the yetis yet, so I don¡¯t know about them. I doubt the yetis will have changed. Aya is worried about the ants. She was their friend, more than anyone else, and she doesn¡¯t have any way of communicating with them. Like I don¡¯t have any way of communicating with the wolves. A part of me wants to try making a deal with the Admin. Like, if he lets Staab come down and then lets us get to floor 98, I¡¯ll¡­ I don¡¯t know. Pretty much anything. Promise to never push any button ever again ever? Even if I wasn¡¯t one of the ones who pushed the end button. I have to wonder if anyone else in the dungeon was used to moving between floors. I mean, we couldn¡¯t have been the only ones to have figured out how, right? I wonder how many other people are upset that they can¡¯t visit their friends any more. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. And it¡¯s all our fault¡­ Goodnight, dungeon.
Staab roared, swinging his heavy longsword at a player. The player yelped, holding a shield in front of him. Staab brought his sword down again, breaking the shield. He was about to bring his sword down onto the player¡¯s skull when a blast of magic hit him. He felt ice go through him, turning him into a frozen sculpture. He didn¡¯t die, though. The magic would wear off within a quarter of an hour. If the players were still around, he¡¯d be able to break free of the ice and attack them. He was facing the exit. The players defeated the last ghost and wandered to the invisible barrier. Two of the group went through while the third waited. Staab watched, curious. One of the players pulled a multicolored key out of his inventory and tossed it to the player on Staab¡¯s side of the barrier. The player caught it, said something in thanks, and walked through. With the group out, the magic affecting Staab evaporated. He stared at the barrier, then ran to his hut. The other hobgoblins called to him, but this was far more important than preparing for the next player. He pulled the pillow off his bed and grabbed his sending stone. ¡°Lily? Lily!¡± He paced impatiently, watching the other NPC¡¯s through a glassless window. ¡°Lily, come on, please¡­¡± The group of ghosts shot away. Players were close. ¡°Fine,¡± he growled, tossing the stone back onto his bed. He ran back out the door, longsword ready. Cycle 27 (1) Dear Diary, Good news: the players have keys that they use to get through the barriers. Actual, physical keys. So if we get one, we can leave the floor. Bad news: the cycle ended before we found out about the keys. So we¡¯re going to have to wait to get one. And then wait even longer to use it. Staab found out about the keys somehow, and told Lilly. She was super happy about it. We all were. The only thing we wonder about is, will it let us go up. I mean, before, we couldn¡¯t. I guess Staab saw someone pass the key from the ¡°down¡± side to the ¡°up¡± side, so he thinks it should. If it doesn¡¯t, we¡¯ll just have to figure out a way of getting Staab a key. But before we can do that, we have to get a key. We¡¯ve been trying to figure out a way of stealing a key from a player. Kimi doesn¡¯t have keys in her shop, so players must get them automatically. Mika and Kimi think we should force a player into giving us a key. Via and Lilly want to figure out how to open a player¡¯s inventory while they sleep. Aya wants to look into duplication spells, and I¡­ I don¡¯t know. I really, really, really wish teleportation worked. I¡¯d feel bad about stealing, but I don¡¯t see any way around it. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Thankfully we have time to figure out the best plan possible. In other news, I have tacos now! I have corn tortillas, taco seasoning to go on ground beef, chorizo, cilantro, three types of hot sauce, pico de gallo, guacamole, limes, and two types of shredded cheese. All the other vegetables and stuff I already had. Oh, except jalape?os. Mika told me that if I ever spell jalape?o without the squiggle over the N, she will murder me with a rusty saw. And, since I guess it¡¯s a sin to eat tacos without alcohol, I got three types of beer, two types of wine, and a couple different harder liquors. Kimi had whiskey before, but that¡¯s the only alcohol any of us had. I don¡¯t really know what to do with them. I mean, I know people drink whiskey straight, but do they do that with vodka? I didn¡¯t get any instructions, so I guess I¡¯ll have to experiment with them. Which, I don¡¯t like alcohol. Not that I have anything against it, and I won¡¯t judge anyone for wanting a beer now and again, but I don¡¯t want to drink it. It burns. And then it makes you stupid. And I don¡¯t care how great being drunk is, I¡¯ve had one hangover in my life and never want another one ever again. I asked Kimi about it, and she said she never drank anything mixed. Lilly was there, and said she only ever drank red wine, because it has lots of health benefits. I hope one of the other girls knows more about alcohol. I¡¯ll go ask. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 27 (2) Dear Diary, Why do I capitalize diary but not dungeon? It¡¯s a weird inconsistency. I never really noticed before now. Maybe I should start capitalizing dungeon, too. If I remember. Anyways, playing with the taco stuff has been fun. I can make chips out of the tortillas, and then we eat them with the guacamole. It¡¯s good. A part of me wishes I had avocados, but I¡¯m not complaining. Maybe next cycle I¡¯ll get the stuff to make burritos, that would be epic. Oh! Turns out, Via used to work at a restaurant that had lots of cocktails. So she knows all sorts of things to make with the alcohol I got. I know I said I¡¯m not a fan of alcohol, but I have to admit she¡¯s made some pretty yummy things. She made this one thing with vodka and chocolate syrup that is my new favorite anything. It doesn¡¯t go well with tacos, though. Actually, nothing I have goes super well with the tacos, except (according to Kimi) beer. I don¡¯t have soda or anything, and most of my drinks are, in one way or another, dairy-based. Tacos, guacamole and pico de gallo have lime in them, and we all know what happens when you mix lime with milk. I have lemongrass tea and lemonade, but I don¡¯t know. I prefer water with tacos. Anyways, we¡¯ve finished our prelims for the marble races. I have a good team this cycle, they all performed well. Not record-breaking well, but I don¡¯t need to break records. I just need consistency. Mika has been doing math stuff with Kimi to figure out angles of jumps and stuff, so our races this cycle should be pretty epic. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. As far as getting a key goes, we¡¯ve decided that violence is the only way. I drank a sleep potion, and then they tried to get my inventory open to remove something, but it didn¡¯t work. There¡¯s a specific hand motion we do to get our inventories open, and we hoped that we could put a player to sleep then open it. Except only the owner of the inventory can see it. So after they waved my hand around, they didn¡¯t even know if my inventory was open. On top of that, inventories have basically unlimited slots. We can organize them however we want. So we don¡¯t know if the key will be the first item in the inventory, or the last, or somewhere in the middle. Finding it would take forever. It¡¯ll be a lot faster to just demand a player give us the key. Lilly said there is a spell that might help, but she won¡¯t go into details yet, other than it¡¯s a pink spell. If she gets it, she¡¯ll have a while to level it up, so that¡¯s good. And if she decides to not get it, Kimi is super ready to stab someone. More ready than she should be. We¡¯ve been focusing on marbles and haven¡¯t had any practice fights lately. I think after we run our first race we¡¯ll schedule a fight. Via and I have been trying to come up with a super good reason for not fighting, but no luck so far. Hopefully they¡¯ll let us sit out. Even if I am getting better with my bonk stick. We¡¯ll see. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 27 (3) Dear Diary, It¡¯s been¡­ almost three weeks since my last entry. We¡¯ve been a weird mix of super busy and nothing happening. So, most important thing first: my marble team is currently in the gold spot! There¡¯s only been one race where we didn¡¯t get a medal. I¡¯m super proud of my team this cycle. If we get the championship gold, I''m going to make them a special pedestal or display case or something, and save them forever in a place of honor. Go Momos!!! Aside from racing, Kimi, Mika, Aya and Lilly have been fighting. They agreed to let Via and I sit out the fights, and instead practice healing and other helpful spells. So that¡¯s nice. But most of all, we¡¯ve been making an art piece. Via has a duplication spell. So far, she can duplicate anything worth up to 25 gold ten times. After that, the original item goes poof. Duplicated items themselves can¡¯t be duplicated. If the keys are worth 25 gold, that¡¯s great. But we don¡¯t know how much one is worth. So Via has been spending most of her time duplicating the crap out of anything she can get her hands on, trying to level up her spell. Hopefully by the time the players get here, she¡¯ll be high enough to be able to duplicate the key at least three times. That way, we won¡¯t have to steal a key. We¡¯ll just borrow one. Stolen novel; please report. First, we¡¯ll try asking to see it. Well, I¡¯ll ask to see it. Since most players stop at my diner first thing, it¡¯s a good bet that I¡¯ll be able to talk to them first. So a player will show up, and I¡¯ll ask if I can see their key. If I get it, I¡¯ll teleport straight into the inn, Via will duplicate it, and I¡¯ll teleport back with the original and an apology. If that doesn¡¯t work, Lilly will come over. She has a persuasion spell that should charm them into gifting her the key. If that doesn¡¯t work (she says some magical items give buffs against being charmed), we¡¯ll give them free milkshakes. With sleeping poison mixed in. Our art piece looks like a giant steel lotus flower. But if someone steps on the plate in the middle, the petals all fold in, trapping the person. It¡¯s basically a giant ornamental bear trap. And, thing is, when players die, they respawn in the exact center of our plaza. Standing up. So while the players are asleep, we¡¯ll drag the lotus to the exact center of the plaza, and kill one of the players. While the player¡¯s friends sleep, he or she will be trapped in our lotus, slowly having their HP drained away, while we explain what¡¯s going on. If the player refuses, they¡¯ll just be trapped there forever, slowly dying and respawning in the exact same place. If the player gets out of the lotus, we¡¯ll kill them. Rinse and repeat. Until the player gives us the key, and we¡¯ll move the lotus into its home between Mika¡¯s shop and the inn. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? The lotus really is pretty, though. Goodnight, Dungeon
Cycle 27 (4) Dear Diary, We decided to paint the lotus, to make it even more ornamental. Mika gave us all paint and told us which petals should be which color. At first she tried to have us do a complicated design, but any time our paint touched someone else''s, their paint would change to our color. So Mika gave up on her beautiful rainbow design and instead went with a cool rainbow design. I like the effect. The player we trap in it probably won''t notice, but others might. We might make more lotuses when we¡¯re done, because building it was actually pretty fun. So was painting it. It kept us busy. We won¡¯t make them death traps, though. Our final marble race is tomorrow. Unless Aya gets all four of her marbles to the finish line before mine, I¡¯m going to get championship gold. Aya is super nervous about the race tomorrow. I¡¯m pretty confident. Kimi is in the bronze spot right now, but even if all her marbles crossed the finish line before all the others, she¡¯d only get championship silver. Aya and I have won most of the races, but her team failed to get a medal three times. My team has only failed to medal once. So at worst, I¡¯ll get silver. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. I¡¯ve already started to build a special shelf for them in my house. They will hold a place of honor on my wall, for being the best marble team a catgirl could ask for. I think the players will get here soon. I hope they will, at least. I¡¯m pretty nervous about the plan, and how it will go. Especially since the first part is all me, I kind of worry that if we end up having to use the lotus it¡¯ll be my fault. I just want it all to be over. I don¡¯t have all that much more to say. I could fill out the rest of the page with squiggles or letters, but I don¡¯t have actual words to describe how everyone is feeling. It¡¯s just¡­ waiting. Always waiting. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 27 (The Plan) With an explosion of ice magic, the last ghost on Floor 92 died. The group cheered, heading to the exit. Ox briefly looked over the items that the ghost had dropped, but didn¡¯t bother picking anything up. After Floor 85 looting monsters was a waste of time. They passed through the exit, watching golden magic check for keys before letting them pass. Thankfully the magic allowed duplicated keys, or Larissa would still be stuck on Floor 20. She¡¯d tied her key to a marble and shot it through the exit, just to see if the marble would go through. It had. Unfortunately, upon hitting the ground, the marble exploded in a burst of fire magic and the key had disintegrated. It¡¯d been hilarious. They got to Floor 93, the snow level feeling wonderful after a fight next to lava. Tig pulled his shirt off and collapsed into a snow bank, rolling around to cool down. He was trying out the otterkin race, a race designed to absolutely suck on hot floors. ¡°Never going with fur again,¡± Tig grumbled into the snow. Larissa laughed. ¡°You¡¯re the one who was always complaining about hating cold.¡± ¡°Turns out, I hate being hot, too,¡± Tig said. ¡°I hate all temperatures equally.¡± ¡°Come on,¡± Ox said, kicking Tig¡¯s tail. ¡°Let¡¯s go get milkshakes.¡± ¡°I wonder if they have margaritas here,¡± Larissa said, heading towards the diner. ¡°Do you think this cat will let me make one myself?¡± ¡°Probably,¡± Ox shrugged. ¡°This one is pretty chill from what I remember.¡± They got to the diner. Nikki was waiting behind the counter, her smile oddly strained. Ox ordered a mocha milkshake and a pizza. Tig ordered a chickenburger and blackberry milkshake. Larissa ordered tacos and a margarita. When Nikki bounced away to make everything, Larissa followed her. Nikki looked back from the kitchen doorway. ¡°Need something else?¡± Larissa smiled. ¡°I was wondering, if it¡¯s not too much trouble, can I make the margarita myself?¡± ¡°Sure! But¡­¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Nikki smiled sheepishly. ¡°Well, there¡¯s a rumor that players have a super cool key. If I let you make the margarita, can I see it?¡± Larissa looked back at Ox and Tig, who shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t see why not,¡± she said, pulling the key out of her inventory. ¡°Wow, that is cool,¡± Nikki said, taking it. She moved back half a step, turning the key in her hands, and teleported away. The players stared at the empty doorway, shocked. ¡°Did- Did she-¡° ¡°How¡­¡± Tig burst out laughing. ¡°You just lost another key! Good job, Larissa!¡± ¡°Oh shut up!¡± she snapped, running to look out the windows. ¡°Where did she go?¡± ¡°She can¡¯t have gone far,¡± Ox said, checking the kitchen. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Tig leaned back in his chair, snickering. Ox and Larissa were about to head outside when Nikki reappeared in the kitchen doorway. ¡°You weren¡¯t expecting that, were you?¡± she asked, beaming as she held the key out. Larissa dashed over and grabbed her key. ¡°No, I wasn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Great prank,¡± Tig called. ¡°These two went berserk!¡± ¡°Thanks! I¡¯ll make your food now,¡± the catgirl said, heading into the kitchen. Larissa made her margarita, the guys got their food, and the key incident was forgotten. As they were finishing up, one of the other catgirls came in. She saw them and smiled. ¡°Oh hello. I wasn¡¯t aware any players were on the floor yet,¡± she said. ¡°Do you mind if I¡¯m here?¡± ¡°No,¡± Ox said, smiling at her. ¡°Not at all,¡± Tig added. Larissa frowned. ¡°Why are your words laced with charm magic?¡± There was an awkward pause. Lily glanced at Nikki, Larissa pulled out her crossbow, and Nikki cast a sleep spell on the players. Tig respawned. There was a click under his feet, and suddenly he was trapped. Six catgirls stood a few feet away, some looking more embarrassed than others. Tig tried to move, but quickly realized that moving caused pain. If it weren¡¯t for the fur, he probably would have been bleeding. Kimi stepped forwards. ¡°Hey. Sorry about this, but we need your key.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Tig asked, staring at them. ¡°To get off the floor,¡± Mika said. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll duplicate it and give it back.¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t have just asked?¡± he demanded. ¡°No,¡± Kimi said. ¡°This is too important to us. We couldn¡¯t risk getting a refusal.¡± Tig glared. ¡°I¡¯d love to give you my key, but I can¡¯t move my arm.¡± ¡°Promise to give us the key and we¡¯ll let you out,¡± Mika said, stepping up to the thing holding him. ¡°Yes, I promise!¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Mika and Kimi pulled the trap down, just enough for him to extract his arms. He opened his inventory, scrolled to the bottom, and pulled out the rainbow key. With an apologetic smile, Via walked up and took it. She duplicated the key seven times. It took long enough that Nikki had to go refresh the sleep spell on Ox and Larissa. Tig¡¯s patience was wearing thin by the time Via passed the key back to him. ¡°Thank you for your cooperation,¡± Lily said, smiling at him. ¡°We apologize for any pain we may have caused. But this was extremely important.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure,¡± Tig grumbled, watching Kimi and Mika pull the trap completely open. He jumped to the ground, watching suspiciously. ¡°Why is it so important?¡± ¡°We have to see our friends,¡± Nikki said, shrugging. Tig looked at their faces, realizing for the first time that these people didn¡¯t just exist when a player was on their floor. They were individuals, sure, but they had lives outside of catering to players. With the barriers being changed, those lives had been interrupted. He felt sorry for them. And then Tig remembered they¡¯d murdered him and threatened him into giving them his key. He turned his back on the group, taking a few steps towards the diner. ¡°From here on out we¡¯re enemies.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fair.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Thank you for the key¡­¡± Cycle 27 (5) Dear Diary, We have keys!!! Via made seven, so we all get one and Staab gets one! We decided to wait until the cycle ends to use them, though. Just to be safe. Kimi was super upset about that, but she got over it. So, first we tried to steal a key, but the key I stole was a duplicate. Duplicated items can¡¯t be duplicated. So I took it back, and Lilly tried to charm the players into giving us a key, but they noticed like instantly that she was using charm magic. So I cast sleep on them, we pulled the lotus trap out into the middle of the plaza, and Kimi stabbed one of the players to death. It only took two stabs, which kinda makes me wonder how powerful her fire daggers are. Or maybe otters are weak to fire, the player was that otter race. Anyways, he gave us the key, but when we let him go he said we were enemies now. I don¡¯t want to be enemies with anyone. He said we should have just asked. I understand that, but when we talked it over everyone agreed that this was too important. I mean, if we asked for the key and the player said no, that would have been super bad. I don¡¯t know why, maybe it has to do with the whole ¡°don¡¯t let the players think we¡¯re real people¡± feelings that we all have. Or maybe we¡¯re all just really afraid of rejection. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Anyways, in other news, my team won gold in the marble championship!!! Aya got silver, and Kimi got bronze. That means Aya and I are enemies until the end of the cycle. It sucks, but that¡¯s how things are. Via thinks that the tradition of being enemies is stupid. Everyone agreed, but it¡¯s tradition. You can¡¯t just stop a tradition because it doesn¡¯t make sense. The tradition started on our first marble championship, when Lilly got gold and Kimi got silver. Kimi was like ¡°from now until I die we are enemies!!!¡± but in a joking tone. The next cycle, Aya got gold and Mika got silver, and Mika said the same thing. So it became tradition. Besides, it¡¯s only for a couple days. A week and a half at most. It provides¡­ not drama, but¡­ framework. Sometimes it¡¯s hard to know where you stand in a group, y¡¯no? Some people are always closer than others, and some people make more decisions than others. It isn¡¯t always fair. With the marble races, it splits our group in ways we never would. It shows us who we¡¯re closest to, and who we think of as most important, even if we hadn¡¯t realized it. And it does it without anyone arguing, or any of us breaking our friendships. So I guess it isn¡¯t stupid at all. Via will figure it out eventually. Anyways, I have to go prepare meatballs for the players to give the dire wolves tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 27 (6) Dear Diary, Kimi and Aya left. Not permanently, but for long enough that the players noticed. They didn¡¯t get into trouble or anything, at least not yet, but it was still bad. I understand why they did it, why they wanted to see Y and the ants, but they should have waited. We aren¡¯t like Staab, who can vanish off his floor and no one notices. We aren¡¯t things that the players fight. We¡¯re people who have to interact with the players. Especially Kimi. Her shop is the most important shop on this floor. And sure, Mika can pretend to be the shop owner for a little bit, since Kimi has one of all her items on display, but what if the player needed five of something? How is Mika supposed to get it? And none of us have access to the information Aya has, so anything the players asked Lilly just had to guess. Aya is usually smarter than this. I kinda wonder if Kimi used charm magic on her. I¡¯d be surprised, but I don¡¯t know why else Aya would agree to it. Anyways, they¡¯re back now, and everyone is mad at them. Especially Lilly, who really really wants to see Staab, but hasn¡¯t because the players are here. There are more players than ever here. Either they¡¯re getting stronger, or they¡¯re getting smarter. Usually we get around thirty individual players come through, but this time we¡¯ve had almost fifty. It looks like there are more groups, so that might have something to do with it. Lilly says that, strategy-wise, starting solo but joining a group halfway down would be smart. That way the players as individuals get all the XP for the early floors, letting them level up faster, but on lower floors they join already strong players to fight the strong enemies that are hard to beat solo. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I still kinda wonder how strong we are compared to the players. I mean, they reset to basically zero each cycle. We aren¡¯t meant to fight, so we don¡¯t. By the time they get here they¡¯re about as strong as they¡¯re going to get, so seeing how strong I am compared to Ox or someone would be really interesting. I can¡¯t ask, because that would be rude. Besides, the players aren¡¯t supposed to know we have stats. I might ask Staab, though, since he¡¯s supposed to be one of the harder to beat enemies. There aren¡¯t a lot of people on his floor, so they¡¯re stronger than the kobolds would be. If I ever see the yetis again I might ask them, but then they¡¯d have to hold a formal meeting to decide if they should tell me or something. I probably won¡¯t ask the yetis. Oh yeah, I didn¡¯t mention it, but the player we took the key from was in Ox¡¯s group. There were three players in the group, they were the first ones here. We didn¡¯t take Ox¡¯s key because he had armor on that negates stabby damage. Since our lotus does stabby damage, he would have died of boredom before anything else. The third party member was the one I took the key from originally, so we knew her key was a duplicate. That¡¯s why we chose to attack the otterkin guy. I don¡¯t know why I feel like I had to explain that. Oh well. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (1) Dear Diary: New cycle! That means we don¡¯t have to deal with players any more, and can use the keys!!! The keys work for us, which is super great! AND it lets us go up through the levels, so we were able to give Staab his key! Sorry I¡¯m using so many exclamation marks, I¡¯m just super excited. Here, I¡¯ll just¡­ get it out of my system: There. That feels better. The first thing we did when the cycle ended was go up a floor to give Staab his key. His floor is a lava floor, and it¡¯s super neat! I was going to write ¡°super cool¡±, but, lava. We met the rest of the hobgoblins and the ghosts that live on his floor. I guess they didn¡¯t believe that Staab had us as friends, because they were super shocked to meet us. I know he¡¯s told them about us, because they immediately knew which one of us was Lilly. Anyways, then we went down to see the wolves, and they almost bit Staab! They didn¡¯t recognize us for a few seconds, but they sure recognized the meatballs. After eating, we were all friends again. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Getting the dire wolves through the barrier was kinda hard, but eventually we figured out to tie the keys onto string, then tie the string around their necks like a collar. After that all we had to do was untie the string and toss it back through the barrier so Kimi and I (who had tied the string) could pass through. We really need more keys. I wish Kimi had keys in her shop. Oh well. We¡¯d told Nat and Y that we had keys and would be coming down, so when we got to the kobold¡¯s floor they already had a party ready. Via was shy at first, but it helped that Mika had already introduced her to the band over the stones. When the band got together and started playing she really opened up. We had a great time at the party. Aya stayed for a while, even though she wanted to go down to the ants right away. When she left we gave her a pizza for them. By ¡°we¡± I mean Nat and I. Oh! Nat is super excited about the taco ingredients! We didn¡¯t have time to experiment with anything, since we were too busy making food for the party, but we can¡¯t wait to start experimenting tomorrow morning. Speaking of which¡­ When the party wound down, the food was gone, the band wasn¡¯t really playing any more¡­ Lilly said it was time to go. Kimi asked why we had to leave. Especially since we were just going to come back tomorrow. None of us had a good reason, soooo¡­ The kobolds built us a house on their floor. It¡¯s not the greatest house. I mean, it was built in half an hour by a couple dozen kobolds stacking bricks in a basic square shape, and doesn¡¯t have a roof. There aren¡¯t any rooms. The only furniture is three bunk beds. Tomorrow they¡¯ll draw up plans and build an actual house for us, but this is fine for now. So, from Floor 97, Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (2) Dear Diary, Life with the kobolds is great! We figure we can spend two weeks with them before going back to our floor, so we kinda live here now. Well, Aya spends most of her time on Floor 98. She says she and the ants are trying to kill the big giant evil worm thing, now that they¡¯ve managed to get into the spider¡¯s nest. But anyways, it took everyone three days to build our house. It has two stories, with six bedrooms. Even though Kimi stays with Y, and Staab stays with Lilly, so we only really need five. Y drew up the blueprints, and he said that there had to be six bedrooms or else things wouldn¡¯t be symmetrical. ¡­And then he and Kimi got into an argument about whether or not pentagons were a good shape. It looked like a fun argument, though, not an upset argument. I get the feeling they argue for fun a lot. Overall I like Y. He¡¯s a good guy. But I think I like Staab more. Staab is more calm, while Y is¡­ It¡¯s like he acts calm, but it¡¯s an act. I don¡¯t know if this makes sense, but it seems like he¡¯s always thinking faster than he moves. While Staab thinks at the same speed as his movements. Seeing them together more makes the differences stand out. Anyways, since we have a bigger house than anyone else, Mika and Via¡¯s band practice in our living room. It¡¯s pretty cool, our house is full of musical instruments now. I spend most of my time cooking at Nat¡¯s house, so I don¡¯t have to hear them play all day. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The kobolds all get food in their inventory, so not everyone has a kitchen. People who like cooking can cook, and those that don¡¯t like it don¡¯t have to. Nat gives out cooked food to the people who don¡¯t like cooking, so she basically has a restaurant in her back yard. It¡¯s just picnic tables, nothing fancy, but I like it. It gives more of a ¡°I¡¯m doing this because it¡¯s fun and for no other reason¡± feel than my diner does. Plus, no one orders food. They don¡¯t get to choose what they eat. We make whatever we want, and if they want to eat it they do. If they don¡¯t want to eat what we make, they don¡¯t have to. Not having to worry about customers'' tastes or getting payment really takes the stress out of cooking. It makes it super fun. Yesterday we took Via to meet the ants. She was pretty curious about them, since Aya spends most of her time down there. We all like the ants since they helped us and stayed with us through Floor 99. It was pretty funny, how in the morning we were all ¡°yeah, the ants! Let¡¯s go say hi to the ants! We love the ants!¡± And then when we got down there the ants were just¡­ a swarm of flying ants. Swarming around. Via totally didn¡¯t understand what we were all excited about. For old time¡¯s sake we joined up with them and killed the spiders. We took all the loot they were guarding, so Via has shiny silver gauntlets now. There was a +1 spear there for her, but instead she took a wand that amplifies spells. Not as much as my bonk stick, but my staff only amplifies non-combat spells. Lilly says Via should try practicing with a couple combat spells that don¡¯t hurt, like the spell that pushes enemies away. Lilly said she was going to write down a list of all the spells, and I think she¡¯s done now. I¡¯ll go see. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (3) Dear Diary, So, we got a message from the Admin this morning. He hadn¡¯t noticed us being down here, or at least hadn¡¯t said anything, but I guess he gets alerted any time someone does something ¡°OP¡±. Either that or when something goes horribly wrong. We¡¯d been using the loot we got from the spiders as prizes in races and games and stuff. They decided to have a one-on-one battle, to see who the strongest kobold was. We weren¡¯t invited to join, since we¡¯re kinda way over their level at this point. But to show off how cool and epic the loot is, Kimi put on the armor that was for her and borrowed Via¡¯s wand. So if she cast a fire spell, it would be amplified something like eighty percent. Then she pointed at her target and cast fireball. It¡­ Well¡­ The target doesn¡¯t exist any more. The barriers we¡¯d put up to designate the fighting ring don¡¯t exist any more. A couple inches of dirt under where the target was is now glass. The people who¡¯d been leaning on the barriers to watch died. The people watching from a couple rows back died. The nearest house has a completely black outside now, and the roof caught fire. Kimi, Lilly, Staab and Aya died. The temperature of Floor 97 is like three degrees warmer. It was an epic fireball. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I was at Nat¡¯s place, and we felt the fireball from there. Via and Mika were on their way to the fighting area, so they didn¡¯t die, but they saw it. They said it was like the sun manifested on the floor. We had to leave the floor so all the kobolds could respawn, but that was easy enough now that we have keys to let us go up or down. Thankfully most of the people who died thought it was hilarious. Oh, none of the wolves died, which was good. They were exploring their new house. Yeah, they have a house now. When no one has a job and materials are free, literally everyone and their dog can have a mansion. Anyways, the Admin noticed the fireball. Or, he got notified about it. He wrote us saying we had to cut it out. We asked cut what out, exactly? And he said that if even one player notices things aren¡¯t how they normally are, he¡¯ll separate us and reset the kobolds (and Floor 97) back to what they were on the first cycle. We don¡¯t want that, so we promised to not let the players notice. He said to stop selling ranch balls, but meatballs were fine as long as the wolves were on their floor when the first player came through. So, we kinda, in a way, have the Admin¡¯s blessing to be here. I mean, he made it clear that the players were his priority, and our comfort and happiness were second, but we can work with that. He said he¡¯s keeping an eye on us now, but he¡¯s too lazy to change anything unless we force his hand. Like we had when we pushed the button. We apologized for that, but he¡¯s not going to remove the keys. But we and the wolves get to stay here for now! We told everyone, and, well, we¡¯re having a party tomorrow. Which I still have to prepare for. Goodnight, Dungeon!!!
Cycle 28 (4) Dear Diary, We introduced the kobolds to marble racing today. Mika brought down her tracks and we set them up. It was super fun! They started betting on the marbles, which I don¡¯t like so much, but since money means nothing here there¡¯s no harm in it. Mika won, I got silver, Via got bronze. After the race they set up a jump track. They ran a tube from a fencepost to the ground, then molded a piece of cardboard to make a ramp, and let a couple marbles go. They were supposed to just land so we could see which one went farthest, but, erm, the marbles exploded. We were all pretty surprised by that. No one got hurt, since we were far enough away, but we were not expecting the marbles to explode. So, of course, we had to see if all the marbles exploded. Then someone threw a marble at someone else, and Marble Tag is now a thing. It¡¯s kind of like paintball, except you turn into an icicle if you¡¯re hit. It¡¯s not painful, just cold. Mika can¡¯t play, since she doesn¡¯t freeze. Instead, since everything she owns turns blue, she¡¯s the moderator. Oh, only the blue marbles freeze, should have mentioned that. Red ones explode in fire, green ones explode into poison gas, and so on. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I had fun for a while, but it¡¯s not really my thing. My thing is cooking. Nat and I have been trying to make up a good meal schedule for the wolves. I mean, meatballs boiled in chicken broth have been their staple for a while, and we think it¡¯s time to introduce some variety. Not that wolves need a lot of variety, we¡¯re not going to start serving them four-course meals or anything, but we have plans to add in a little bit of bacon and fish to their diet. Just so they don¡¯t get bored. Oh, we¡¯ve been sending food down to the ants, too. At first we were sending down horrible amalgamations of everything fatty and sugary we have, but Aya says they aren¡¯t ravenous any more. We¡¯ve given them enough food that taste is starting to matter. So this afternoon we sent down a salad that was basically half ranch dressing, and Aya says they appreciated getting vegetables. For tomorrow Nat wants to make a giant stir-fry and send that down. I haven¡¯t had a stir-fry in forever, so most of tomorrow morning we¡¯ll be making stir-fry for everyone. Everyone except the wolves. I don¡¯t think stir-fry would be good for them. One of the things Nat wants to teach me is how to cook with alcohol. She says the alcohol all boils or cooks out, leaving only the flavor, and that makes sense, but I don¡¯t know. Like making spaghetti sauce with wine. I don¡¯t like the flavor of wine, so I¡¯m not all that excited about adding that flavor into food. Lilly would probably like it, but I don¡¯t know about anyone else. But that¡¯s a problem for another day. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (5) Dear Diary, We¡¯re going back to our floor tomorrow night. Most of today was spent getting ready for the going-away party we¡¯ll have all day tomorrow. I have to admit, as fun as this has been, I¡¯ve missed our floor. I miss my house, my kitchen, my diner. I¡¯m glad we all live together here, because if we didn¡¯t I¡¯d never see the girls. Mika and Via are always doing band things, Aya spends her days with the ants, Kimi and Y argue about arithmetic, and I don¡¯t even know what Lilly and Staab do because I¡¯ve been spending fifteen hours a day in Nat¡¯s kitchen. It¡¯s been super fun, and I love Nat to pieces, but I¡¯m ready to just hang out with the girls again. I¡¯m ready to relax. We didn¡¯t even have a marble championship this cycle. The wolves will stay here until the first players get to our floor. Then we¡¯ll tell the kobolds, who will have to kill them to get them back to Floor 94. It¡¯ll be hard, but necessary. I think Mika is ready to get back to our floor, too. She¡¯s pretty social, but she¡¯s creative. In a number of ways. And here all she¡¯s been doing is music stuff. She can¡¯t make things out of metal here, and she doesn¡¯t even really have time to draw. She looks ready for a break from music. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Actually¡­ I never thought about it, but I never really heard Via talk about her siren friends. On the floor where she lived before. I mean, she mentioned them, but I don¡¯t know any of their names. I¡¯m pretty sure if I got sent to a different floor, I¡¯d never shut up about the girls here. We¡¯re basically family, and I know I¡¯d see an ant and talk for an hour about Aya and how she¡¯s friends with ants. Or if someone was drawing, I¡¯d tell them about Mika. Or any time something happened with fire, I¡¯d talk about Kimi. I¡¯d miss them, and talk about them. But Via doesn¡¯t talk about them. I might ask her about that. Maybe she wasn¡¯t as close to them as we are. Or maybe she finds it hard to remember them, since she might not ever see them again. Yeah, I should ask. Even if she doesn¡¯t want to talk about it, at least then I¡¯ll know for sure to avoid the topic. I wonder¡­ I forget what floor she was from. If it¡¯s close enough, we might be able to get there. Since the keys let us go up as well as down. If she¡¯s from a floor below, I don¡¯t know, 75 we might have a chance at getting there before the players do. Then we could all meet Via¡¯s friends! It probably won¡¯t happen any time soon. Next cycle will probably be spent the same as this one, which I won¡¯t be mad about. But maybe a couple cycles from now we¡¯ll be bored and will want a challenge. It could be fun! I¡¯ll bring it up when we get back to our floor. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (Intermission) Ain''t no party like a kobold party cuz a kobold party has dragons!Sadie here! I couldn''t decide if I should put this beautiful piece of art in the chapter before, or the chapter that will come out Saturday. So I decided screw it, it''s going between the chapters!!! Mwahahahaha!!!!! This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I was able to commission this amazing portrait of Bonecrusher the Black (also known as Lewis) at the catgirl''s going-away party thanks to the generosity of people on Patreon! Consider joining so my art budget can grow ^.^ (And yes, I know the people aren''t very kobold-shaped, but the artist is from Italy and didn''t know what "kobold" meant. I chickened out and told her to just draw stick figures...) Cycle 28 (6) Dear Diary, Home sweet home. I missed my diner so much. And my diner missed me, or at least it should have. I spent like four hours dusting and cleaning everything. Turns out dust is a thing here! I hadn¡¯t noticed before, since I always kept my kitchen clean, and the tables were all used pretty often. My restaurant diner thing (I use the words interchangeably) is where the girls all hang out. We all have our shops and homes, but they get pretty boring alone. Plus I have food and milkshakes here. People always gravitate to food. Thinking it over, I did know that dust was a thing. When Dorothy was here the inn was always pretty dusty. She didn¡¯t clean much. Or at all. Mostly because she didn¡¯t move. Via keeps the inn all nice and clean, so I haven¡¯t thought about dust since she got here. It¡¯s not that I don¡¯t clean, no. I clean my diner every day. And since I clean every day, nothing has time to get dusty. Anyways, the going-away party the kobolds threw for us was epic. I¡¯ve said it before and will probably say it again: the kobolds know how to party. They even put party streamers on Lewis the dragon, which he wasn¡¯t all that thrilled about but it looked super cute. I mean, imagine a giant black dragon named Bonecrusher the Black¡­ covered in party streamers. With a kobold-sized party hat. It was adorable. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Someone convinced Aya to let them tie ribbons in her hair. The ribbons all turned yellow, because that¡¯s how things work here, but the effect was¡­ well¡­ ok honestly it looked like she¡¯d let a couple three year olds play with her hair for an hour. Lewis looked cute. Aya mostly looked resigned. Anyways, other than that we all had a great time at the party. I kinda love the mentality the kobolds have about parties. I mean, there isn¡¯t a year here, and cycles are different lengths. So instead of having parties for Christmas or birthdays, they have parties for everything. Someone leveled up a cool skill? Party. The wolves did something adorable? Party. Nat made something new and it was delicious? Party! Someone broke the record for fastest race? Party!! Someone was bored? Party!!! Who needs Christmas when you have one party a week anyways? I wonder if the yetis ever have parties. Probably not. It¡¯s easier to have parties when there are lots of reasons to celebrate, and with more people come more reasons. I mean, we never had parties. Staab mentioned that there weren¡¯t ever parties on his floor. Although, since the yetis have a calendar, they might celebrate Christmas. I¡¯m super curious about that now. Next cycle I¡¯ll have to go down to the yetis and ask. But they¡¯re weird, so I¡¯ll have to find someone who wants to go with me. Maybe Via will want to see their floor. And Aya might want to come, or at least we might be able to convince her to join us. I don¡¯t think anyone really likes the yetis, so I¡¯m not sure anyone will want to come specifically to talk to them. But, never hurts to ask¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (7) Dear Diary, We squeezed in a marble championship this cycle. We knew we wouldn¡¯t have time for all the races, so instead we decided to just do six. If we have more than one race a day it isn¡¯t as exciting somehow. We could probably have squeezed them in, but it would have become boring. The last thing any of us wants is for marble racing to become boring. My team got fifth place overall. Via got gold, which she was super happy about. It¡¯s the first time she¡¯s gotten gold, that was exciting. Staab joined us, so we had seven racers. I think next cycle Kimi is going to insist on Y joining us up here, so we¡¯ll have eight racers. The more racers the better, even if it lowers the odds of me winning. Mika and Via won¡¯t ask the band to come up here. The band is a group, like we¡¯re a group. We can mix things up, but we belong here and they belong there. And I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever ask Nat to come up here. She¡¯s as much of a leader to the kobolds as Lewis is, but in a different way. She¡¯s a listener. She¡¯s, well, a really nice grandma. They need her. Plus I don¡¯t think Lewis approves of his kobolds leaving the floor. When the big group went to see the yetis he only let us on the condition no one would stay away long. And when Nat and I took food to the ants he looked¡­ disapproving. Not to the point that he¡¯d stop us, but I think he¡¯s worried about his kobolds being scattered and replaced. Which, that¡¯s a totally valid fear. I¡¯m kinda afraid of that, too. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Anyways, we had our races, they were fun, Via and Lilly are ¡°enemies¡± now. Lilly and Via weren¡¯t really all that close anyways, so that¡¯s fine. Actually, they might end up being closer after this, since they spent most of today ¡°not talking to each other¡± through Staab as they played cards. They were having fun. It was just the three of them because Mika was giving me drawing lessons, and Aya and Kimi were practicing fighting. Mika is determined to get me to the point where I can draw a straight line. I¡¯m not quite there yet, but practice makes perfect. And it¡¯s a nice break from cooking. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever be anywhere close to Mika in terms of drawing ability. She has so much talent and practice. But more than that, she truly loves drawing. I like it, it¡¯s fun, but I can¡¯t spend hour after hour on a single thing. I mean, with cooking there are different things involved. Even before you turn on the stove there are so many things to decide and do, and every minor decision will turn the end dish into something different. So many senses are involved aside from sight, and it¡¯s always so satisfying at the end. But with art it¡¯s just, pencil on paper. Sometimes pen on paper. Sometimes a different pen on paper. And one wrong move can ruin hours of work. So, learning to draw is fun. Overall I think I¡¯ll be better for it. But it¡¯s never going to be my obsession. Anyways, I¡¯m going to try drawing an octopus now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 28 (8) Dear Diary, The players got here a couple days ago. They seem to be getting through the floors below us ok, so everything must be back to normal. Someone I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve seen before complained about the kobolds, but another player told her that the kobolds were always this hard to beat, so I¡¯m pretty sure they aren¡¯t using magic any more. Which is good, because the Admin might get upset if they did. Anyways, Ox¡¯s group got here. Meaning the player we stole from got here. He¡­ Well, they got here late in the day. So they decided to not bother trying to get through the next floors until they¡¯d had a good night¡¯s rest. The player who doesn¡¯t like us, Tig, got kinda tipsy. I probably shouldn¡¯t have let him have that much alcohol, but whatever. He started ranting about how we¡¯re not players, so they should kill us. He pulled out a crossbow and shot me. It did¡­ basically nothing. It stung a little, but it felt like I got bit by a mosquito more than anything. There were two groups in the diner at that moment. Six people. They saw me brush off the bolt, and were kinda shocked. I guess when I was hit they got to see my HP bar. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Well, I should explain that HP doesn¡¯t go up as someone levels up. Each race has a set number of hit points, and that¡¯s that. What happens is, things do less damage. So when the crossbow bolt hit me, it only did like half a point of damage. Anyways, the players wondered if maybe I was immortal or something, and started attacking me. It scared me, so I teleported to Aya¡¯s shop. I told her what was happening, why I was freaked out. When the players got to her shop, she electrocuted them all. One hit was all it took to kill them. So, well, one thing led to another, and it turned into a full-on battle. There were ten players in total involved, against the six of us. Lilly and Mika are the only ones without teleport spells, and Mika¡¯s shop has a lot of weapons, so we teleported there and barricaded ourselves. We just kept killing them on sight. It was kinda really easy. Anyways, the Admin noticed pretty fast. I mean, it probably took an hour, but that¡¯s fast for the Admin. He told the players to cut it out, and respawned us in our shops. They were like ¡°but aren¡¯t we supposed to attack them?¡± and he was like ¡°no!! Stop it!¡± which was pretty cool. So yeah, that happened. Via was kinda freaked out about being shot with a crossbow, but the player who hit her apologized. Lilly and Mika thought it was funny. Kimi wants to fight again, while Aya and I just wonder how strong we are compared to the players. It must be by a lot. I might ask someone someday. But not right now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re back in our house on Floor 97! The dire wolves are back in their house here too, getting all the attention from the kobolds. I think some of the kobolds are trying to figure out if dire wolf puppies can be a thing. I don¡¯t have anything new to cook with this cycle. Which is sad, but Nat says this gives us time to improve the recipes we already have. I can¡¯t argue with that! We¡¯ve already made blackberry biscuits that are a hundred times better than regular biscuits, and I like them better than blackberry pancakes, too. We¡¯re going to try making pasta, even though we have nothing appropriate for pasta making. It¡¯ll be fun! OH! Ok so, I found something out! I mentioned that it was weird the kobolds all had three-letter names. Like, Mika¡¯s band members are Sam, Tif, Ash, Zoe and Mat. Nat told me the names the kobolds have now are just the first three letters of their original names. Her name used to be Natalia, and when she became a kobold it was turned into Nat. Which was super interesting and all, but I couldn¡¯t figure out what Y¡¯s original name had been. Unless his parents totally hated him and just straight-up named him ¡°Why¡±. So Nat explained that some people got to change their names. People named things like Charlie or Grace, who didn¡¯t want to be called Gra or Cha. Y¡¯s name, the shortened version, is actually You. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I feel like Mika or Kimi could find something really sneaky and clever to do with this information. I don¡¯t know what to do with it. Other than randomly saying ¡°hey, You,¡± when he walks into the room. Which just seems lame. I haven¡¯t told anyone yet. I kinda want to, but a part of me doesn¡¯t want to. I mean, it¡¯s not a secret, but it isn¡¯t my business. Who cares what his name was, because none of us use our old names. They don¡¯t matter any more. Although, at this point I would probably freak out if someone called me Rachel. It¡¯d just be too weird. Especially if it were someone who I know I didn¡¯t tell. Like, it¡¯s possible I¡¯ve mentioned it to the girls and don¡¯t remember. So if Mika called me Rachel it¡¯d be super weird. But if Lewis called me Rachel, that would seriously freak me out. Anyways, tomorrow we (the catgirls) are going to go down to the yetis and ask what their levels are. Just to know exactly how strong we are compared to what the average player is used to when they get here. I don¡¯t know if I want it to be way higher or only a little bit. Way higher would be cool, but it would also be kinda scary in a way. I¡¯m pretty sure the players all reset to zero every cycle, while we don¡¯t, so we¡¯ve had a lot more time to level up than the players do. But the players have¡­ I don¡¯t know, more incentive? They actively work at getting stronger through the cycle, while we kinda got strong by accident and for fun. I¡¯m making a couple pizzas for the yetis, and they¡¯re just about done. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (2) The lead yeti moved away from the voting circle, turning to face the catgirls. ¡°We apologize,¡± she said. ¡°We have voted, and the majority do not want to share our statistics with you. We feel that statistics or ¡®levels¡¯ are a private matter. We are not offended that you asked, but cannot agree to your request.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± the one who¡¯d brought pizza said, disappointed. ¡°We respect your decision,¡± the purple one said, bowing slightly. ¡°Thank you for hearing us out.¡± The silver one bowed as well. ¡°Yes, thank you.¡± ¡°Well, there¡¯s one way of judging our strength over theirs without sharing numbers,¡± the blue one said softly, glancing at the red one. The red one grinned, eyes flicking between her and the yetis. To the lead yeti, this one seemed a bit¡­ feral. The purple one, by far the most formal-looking of the group, shot them a glare. She started to say something, stopped, and turned slightly. ¡°We have no more business here,¡± she said. ¡°Nikki, Via, let¡¯s go.¡± The green and silver catgirls followed her away from the yeti¡¯s town. The other three stayed. ¡°Can we help you with something else?¡± the lead yeti asked. The yellow one stepped forward, slowly twirling a halberd between her fingers like a cheerleader¡¯s baton. ¡°They don¡¯t like fighting,¡± she said. ¡°We respect that,¡± the blue one said. ¡°But we¡¯re getting what we came here for.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The feral catgirl pulled two glowing daggers out of their sheaths. ¡°You have until they get out of earshot to change your votes.¡± ***** Dear Diary, First things first! The yetis! They didn¡¯t tell us what levels they were at. We went down there (only us girls, and a couple ants followed) and it took us like an hour to find the yetis. They¡¯ve moved to the other side of the ravine. Lilly asked why they¡¯d moved, and they grumbled something about the side with the door being too busy. So yep, they don¡¯t want us to visit. Anyways, we explained that we wanted to know what their levels were to compare them to ours. They huddled together and held a vote, because that¡¯s what they do, and the majority vote was to not tell us. And that was that. Lilly, Via and I left after that, but the other girls stayed behind a while. I¡¯m pretty sure they killed them all, but aren¡¯t saying. If they did I¡¯m not all that upset about it. The yetis are weird. Second thing! And the most important thing! Kimi has pets in her inventory!!! They¡¯re all tiny, nothing bigger than a housecat, but they¡¯re adorable and amazing! So far the options are: cat, dog, owl, whale (for some reason), monkey and frog. Due to colors, the only thing I¡¯m able to get is a frog. I¡¯m not a big fan of frogs, so I passed. The kobolds want all the pets. Unfortunately, to get them they need actual money. One of the things that drops when they die is money. Soooo today has mostly been kobolds repeatedly murdering each other to collect money for pets. Well, not mostly. It was like an hour before Lewis got tired of it, and told us to kill him. That would drop enough money for like twenty pets, which should cover whatever was lacking. I felt bad about it, but we killed him. Everyone got their pets. Some people declared that the dire wolves should be the only pets on the floor, and refused to get pets. And some people just didn¡¯t want a pet. But I know there are at least forty cats on the floor now. The pets don¡¯t need feeding, because of magic, so that¡¯s epic. We have to figure out if the pets will affect their fighting, and if the players will get upset. So tomorrow we¡¯re going to have a battle. But that¡¯s tomorrow. Tonight we¡¯re having fun playing with Via¡¯s new owl. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (3) Dear Diary, We attacked the kobolds today. It was kinda fun, it reminded me of when we were still working our way through the dungeon. That feels like so long ago. I¡¯m pretty sure the kobolds had fun, too. But, it always felt like they were having fun when they attacked us. We aren¡¯t real enemies, so they can attack¡­ casually. It¡¯s still a fight to the death, sure, but it¡¯s us. We aren¡¯t attacking them because we think they¡¯re dumb, or because we¡¯re supposed to. It¡¯s because we want to. And then we¡¯ll have pizza. Overall we killed them pretty fast. Aya says we¡¯re about three times as strong as the average player should be when reaching this level, so that¡¯s no surprise. But we weren¡¯t testing our strength, we were testing theirs. And we learned something important: cat and monkey owners will have to get rid of their pets. Not yet, of course, but when the players get here yeah. So, all the pets give bonuses. All the bonuses are potentially useful in combat. Like, having a frog makes it so you can jump ten feet. That could be super useful. The kobolds, not being total idiots, won¡¯t jump in combat because they don¡¯t want the players to guess they have a frog pet. Unfortunately, having a cat increases your reflexes by twenty percent. We wondered if that would be noticeable, and it totally is. Like, no mistaking it. The kobolds with cats were super fast with their attacks and blocks. Cats also give their owners darkvision, which I¡¯m sure is important on a couple floors, but it isn¡¯t needed or useful here. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Having a dog gives you a companion that will automatically attack anything that attacks you. But they can¡¯t teleport or anything, so all we have to do with them is herd them into the dire wolves¡¯ mansion and close all the doors and windows. Easy. Whales pull you through water super fast and drop money every so often (for no reason anyone can tell). Whales aren¡¯t a problem. Owls give you flight and darkvision. None of the kobolds are dumb enough to start flying mid-battle, so they¡¯re good. Monkeys are weird. Their description in the store says they give you stupid good climbing abilities and a tail that¡¯ll protect you from attacks. ¡­I¡¯m paraphrasing, of course. Anyways, when the first kobold got a monkey, no tail appeared. So we thought maybe that line was something that wasn¡¯t around yet? Or that maybe because kobolds already have tails, they couldn¡¯t get another one. Well, we found out that both those guesses were wrong. When a monkey-owning kobold is attacked, a see-through ghost tail appears and blocks the attack. It¡¯s super obvious. So, sadly, the monkeys will have to go. A couple of the kobolds have already switched out their pets. They don¡¯t want to grow too attached to them only to lose them. Some others have decided to keep them until the players get here, then next cycle get a different pet. And a couple have decided to just keep switching out their cats or monkeys every cycle. They think that the pets are all the same, so they won¡¯t notice the difference. That just¡­ seems kinda heartless to me. Anyways, I¡¯m gonna get a frog when we go back to our floor. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (4) Dear Diary, Well, we did it. After many, many, many fails, Nat and I made something that is almost pasta. It¡¯s passable if you¡¯ve never had pasta before. And we made a decent sauce to go with it. It would have been infinitely better with garlic and basil, but such is life. It kind of felt like sacrilege to make Italian food without garlic or basil, not gonna lie. If the Admin showed up and told Nat she could have basil in exchange for her soul, she would accept in a heartbeat. It¡¯d take me three heartbeats, but I¡¯d probably do it, too. Basil is a good herb. Maybe I should start a campaign, ask everyone including the ants and yetis to write the Admin asking for basil. Hang banners everywhere that say ¡°We Need Basil¡±. Specifically fresh basil, because as long as I¡¯m asking for something I might as well ask for the best. I won¡¯t start a campaign for garlic, because if I add more than one thing the list will instantly explode into like a thousand different things Nat and I wish we had. Oh, speaking of the ants! Aya and them finally killed the big giant evil worm thing! It took them forever, but they managed it. Aya says it was close, they lost two thirds of the ants. She says they lured it into the spider¡¯s territory, so the spiders helped. The spiders didn¡¯t know they were helping, but they probably took out a quarter of the worm¡¯s HP. The tricky part was getting the worm out of the spider¡¯s territory just before it died so the loot wouldn¡¯t drop where the spiders would claim it. But they did it! And as a result, Aya gained enough XP to max out several stats. She¡¯s officially the strongest of us, and will probably stay that way for a long time. I¡¯m happy for her. Lilly is kinda jealous. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I get why she¡¯s jealous, but it¡¯s not like this was unexpected. I mean, Aya¡¯s been down there for the better part of two cycles now, fighting with the ants. Of course she was getting stronger. Meanwhile, we were just hanging out and partying. Ok, not just that, but mostly that. I was already a lvl 100 chef, so I haven¡¯t gained anything. I think the stat we¡¯ve all collectively gained was wolf taming, since we¡¯re pretty active with the dire wolves. I don¡¯t know if that will ever come in handy, but who knows. It might, especially if we decide to go up through the floors and meet more wolves. In other news, Mika and Via¡¯s band are putting together an opera. Lilly and Staab are in charge of the actors, and Kimi and Y are in a competition to see who can design the most epic sets for it. I don¡¯t really have a part in this. I mean, what would I do? Unless the play involves a giant cake, there¡¯s not much I can contribute. It makes me feel left out, but at the same time I feel guilty for feeling left out. After all, Aya isn¡¯t a part of it, either. I think I¡¯ll go ask her if she feels left out. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (5) Dear Diary, Kimi and Y are too dangerous together. We have to figure out a way of separating them. This morning they got into a friendly argument. Nothing new there. It involved numbers, which also isn¡¯t new. It also involved the words ¡°oxygen limit¡± and ¡°open flames¡± and ¡°unlimited fuel¡±. Which was concerning, but we ignored it. And then they left for a couple hours. Y respawned, grumbling about losing. Kimi didn¡¯t come back. So Y came to me and said Kimi was probably stuck on floor 95, unable to get across the ocean. He asked me to go get her. What he didn¡¯t mention was the fact that they¡¯d sucked all the oxygen out of the slime floor! It¡¯s completely impossible to get through the maze now, because the air is unbreathable! I don¡¯t know how they did it, or why, or how, or why, or mostly why, but having two insane mad scientists dating is a very bad idea and we need to break them up. Like, it¡¯s great that they found each other and are (as far as I can guess) totally in love. Yay. But seriously, one of these days they¡¯re going to destroy this entire dungeon, and the only thing they¡¯ll have to say when we pick ourselves out of the rubble is ¡°I told you it would work¡±. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Hkshkijsgh!!! Ok, fine, for legal purposes I¡¯m going to add that I have no plans to sabotage their relationship. I don¡¯t even know if that¡¯s possible. At this point I don¡¯t think the Admin himself could keep them apart for long. They¡¯re both too smart. If the Admin separated them, they¡¯d just take that as a super fun challenge. Aaaaanyways, the opera is coming together nicely. Aya and I told the other girls we were feeling left out, so now we¡¯re the official listeners/watchers. We¡¯re there to give feedback on everything. Most of the feedback has been good, since everyone knows what they¡¯re doing, but we caught a plot hole and pointed out a couple choreography things. Surprisingly, there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with any of the sets. I guess if you tell the insane mad scientist couple to make something and make sure no one who uses it will die, they¡¯re able to (after explaining how we¡¯re all going to die eventually, and clarifying that no one will die while using what they build) come up with some pretty cool sets that are perfectly safe. Oh, I haven¡¯t said what the play is about yet! It¡¯s basically, ok so, imagine if The Phantom of the Opera and a telenovela had a baby. That¡¯s basically it. The music is kind of from Phantom, but the band doesn¡¯t have an organ or piano, so they changed it a lot. Raul is Christine¡¯s adopted brother, but Christine has amnesia and doesn¡¯t remember him anyways. And they made the phantom Christine¡¯s dad, who everyone thinks is dead, but really he¡¯s just hiding from some Persian guy he owes a lot of money. The new owners are still the comic relief, and in this version the pre-Madonna leaves the opera because she¡¯s pregnant. There are a couple other changes, but those are the big ones. Is it pre-Madonna? I always thought it was that. I¡¯ll go ask Via before I head to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (6) Dear Diary, Soooo to answer the question from last night, no. It¡¯s ¡°prima donna¡±, which is Italian for ¡°first lady¡±. It¡¯s a title that goes to the most important actress in an opera. Apparently my hearing the words as ¡°pre-Madonna¡± is absolutely hilarious to everyone who has ever music¡¯d. Well, how was I supposed to know?? I don¡¯t speak Italian!!! Anyways, the play is going to happen in three days. Everyone is super excited about it. We¡¯re going to have a formal party, instead of a normal party. The kobolds are making Lewis a bow tie. The wolves already have bow ties. It¡¯s kind of weird with the wolves now that pets are an official thing. Some people are like¡­ pet purists? They say we shouldn¡¯t have any pets other than the wolves. Which, I sort of get. I mean, the pets are supposed to be a thing for the players. We only have access to them because of Kimi¡¯s shop. But on the other hand, we aren¡¯t supposed to have the wolves as pets, either. So that argument is more or less invalid. Other people think pets are supposed to be a responsibility. You¡¯re supposed to take care of a pet; feed it and clean up after it and make sure it¡¯s healthy. We have to do that with the wolves. But the new pets don¡¯t need any of that. They¡¯re more toys than pets. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. The response to that is ¡°what¡¯s wrong with having a toy that loves you¡±, which is a sentiment that¡¯s hard to argue with. I don¡¯t know. Personally, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anything wrong with having one of the new pets. Via has an owl, his name is Hooty, and he¡¯s super cute. But there¡¯s a kind of¡­ it¡¯s like he turns off if no one is in the room. Turns into a statue. He has a personality, but it¡¯s the same personality as all the other owls. But Siri Wolf is the best doggo ever and I love her forever. She likes her bed to be in the middle of the room, and will drag it to be where she wants it to be. Her favorite snack is fried pepperoni. She has personality. And when no one is around, she still does things. All the wolves do. I kinda think that the wolves used to be real dogs. Their personalities are different, but still pretty doglike. I mean, Siri acts like a collie, Balto acts like a husky, Floofles acts like a golden retriever, Bear is pretty darn german shepherd-like, and Linda is absolutely a pit bull. Not sure what Wolfie McWolfpants was. The way they move and bark is slightly different. I¡¯m sure they have feelings like we do, telling us what we have to do, but overall they act like normal dogs. That kinda makes me wonder if the sharks on the water floor used to be normal sharks. And what the heck were the slimes? Granted, I haven¡¯t spent a whole lot of time around the slimes, but I have absolutely no clue what they could have been. Maybe a bat or something? Something that lived in a cave? Maybe they were slugs. Maybe sea slugs. I should ask the girls, they might have ideas. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (7) Dear Diary, The play was great! The actors did a super good job, all the sets exploded and caught fire when they were supposed to and at no other time, and the music was epic. Everyone was in tears by the end. Except Lewis. He mostly thought it was funny. The party afterwards was epic, too. The band played a couple waltzes, and I was surprised at how many people knew how to waltz. I mean, I sure as heck didn¡¯t know how to waltz before tonight. It¡¯s super fun, though. I¡¯m glad Y taught me. It isn¡¯t hard or anything, once you learn the rhythm. We go back home tomorrow, so this was kind of our going away party this cycle. It¡­ We talked it over, after the party, and decided that we won¡¯t spend next cycle here as much. We like being a group, and here we aren¡¯t. All of us love the kobolds, we have our friends and things to do here, but to get that we have to give up our closeness. None of us want to give that up. So next cycle we¡¯re going to start working our way up. We¡¯ll see how far we can get in a week. The second week we¡¯ll spend with the kobolds. And the third week we¡¯ll just be waiting for the players. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The first day of the cycle we¡¯ll go down to the kobolds, to bring the wolves here. We can¡¯t leave them alone, after all. We aren¡¯t going to let Staab or Y join us. At least for one cycle. This is mostly because we don¡¯t know where we¡¯re going to respawn. Well, Aya doesn¡¯t know where we¡¯ll respawn. Lilly and I agree with her, that if we¡¯re above our usual respawn place we might be sent to the next one up. Which I think is floor 85? If we die and end up there it¡¯ll be bad, but not horrible. But if six catgirls, a hobgoblin and a kobold randomly show up, that might be bad. Especially if the catgirls on that floor have never left and didn¡¯t know it was possible. Mika, Kimi and Via think we¡¯ll respawn back on our floor, like always. They¡¯re not worried about it. I understand their logic, but I don¡¯t know. Well, when Aya said she thought we¡¯d respawn up, I agreed that it made sense. Via looked at me and said ¡°you always agree with Aya, don¡¯t you¡±. I mean, of course I do, it¡¯s her job to know things! She got that job by being really smart! Not listening to her would be dumb! It¡¯s not that I blindly agree with everything she says! ¡­Is it? I¡¯ve been trying to think of times when I¡¯ve disagreed with Aya, but nothing comes up. But like I said, Aya is smart. She said we shouldn¡¯t push the buttons, and look how that ended. So yeah. And she doesn¡¯t know everything, but she says when she doesn¡¯t know something. So if she says something, it¡¯s because she¡¯s sure about it. And she¡¯s always right. So why shouldn¡¯t I agree with her? Sheesh. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 29 (8) Dear Diary, Back to marble races! I do love marble races. Staab and Y are here, meaning there are eight contestants this cycle. Y is currently dead last in the championship, which he mostly thinks is funny. He¡¯s being a good sport about it. Unlike Staab, who is in fourth place and determined to get first. I¡¯m in second place, with Mika in first and Via in third. I¡¯m having fun. We told the kobolds that we wouldn¡¯t be with them for the first week next cycle. They were sad, but understand. They¡¯re glad we¡¯ll leave the wolves with them, though. The wolves are the most important thing. I think Y was angry that we didn¡¯t invite him to go fight with us. It¡¯s hard to tell, but when Kimi told him his face went completely neutral. He just watched her for a couple seconds, not saying anything. When she told him Staab wasn¡¯t joining us either he laughed and changed the subject. It¡¯s weird how some people are normally quiet but get loud when they¡¯re upset, and other people are usually loud but get quiet when they¡¯re upset. And then there are people like me who are in the middle. Anyways, the wolves are still with the kobolds. They¡¯ll stay there until the first players get here, like last time. The people who had cats and monkeys as pets have given them up or traded them for some other pet. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Via is the only one here with a pet. I was going to get a frog, but I decided not to. I don¡¯t need a frog. Staab kind of wants a dog, but not as they are now. All the pets are kind of¡­ potato-shaped. They¡¯re made to be round and cute. And Staab, a very manly man, doesn¡¯t really want to own anything that could make someone ¡°awww¡±. I think part of that is that he officially lives with a bunch of other hobgoblin guys, who all do very manly things. They¡¯d make fun of him. Gender norms are weird and dumb. I mean, if we (a group of catgirls) can use swords and know how to fight then a guy should be able to have an adorable dog follow him around. I kind of get the feeling Staab likes hanging out with us more than the people on his floor. He doesn¡¯t stay here all the time just because of Lilly. He spends time with all of us, plays cards with all of us. We¡¯re all his friends. He¡¯s a good guy, even if he is getting cranky about losing marble races. Anyways, I¡¯m excited to go up through the floors next cycle. I hope we¡¯re able to get to wherever Via is from. Or at least meet new friends! Even if we have to kill them all before we become friends, like what happened with the kobolds. I bet people are going to be super surprised when we walk through the exit. I can¡¯t wait for next cycle. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (9) Dear Diary, The first players got here today. It was the group of min-maxers. They all ordered strawberry milkshakes. They said they were doing a ¡°speed run¡± so they only stayed long enough to eat and resupply. Apparently a speed run is where you go through a dungeon as fast as possible. You don¡¯t focus on doing it right, just fast. Which I guess could be fun, once you¡¯ve been through a dungeon a couple dozen times. I think other people will start speed running, especially if these people make it before any other players get to us. Which they might. They¡¯re here like a full day earlier than we expected anyone to be down. Depending on how speedy they are, they might make it to the yetis by tonight. I know they¡¯re at least to the slimes, because one of them respawned here after being dissolved by acid. I hope they manage to get to the last floor tonight. As sucky as it would be for the other players, it¡¯ll be great for us. Aya doesn¡¯t know anything about the floors above us, other than Staab¡¯s floor of course, so it¡¯s a mystery to all of us. I guess if another player gets here before the min-maxers get here I could ask. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. We¡¯re all getting pretty excited about going up. The time is getting close, and we all feel the need to explore. I¡¯ve seen all the girls staring up at the ceiling when no one is around. I can¡¯t wait. Oh! The marble championship! Mika got gold, I got silver, and Staab got bronze. The last race was intense. Mika set up a jump for the marbles, but remember how the marbles explode now? Yeah, she had to set the course up so that the marbles went up high enough, but not so high that they blew up when they landed. We did four laps on the course, and every time the marbles got close to the jump we all kinda backed away slightly, in case something went wrong and it all exploded. It was super fun! I think next cycle we might make a long-jump course, and get them to explode on purpose. That would be cool, I think. But I¡¯d lose the marble, so it¡¯d have to be a pretty bad marble. Or maybe not. Maybe a good but not great marble? Like, the marble that came in tenth in the prelims. A marble that can hold its own in a race, but couldn¡¯t quite win. I wonder what the girls- the other racers now that we¡¯ve got two guys¡­ I wonder what their tactics will be. If they¡¯ll take the best racers knowing they¡¯ll lose them. Or if they¡¯ll take the worst racers so they aren¡¯t losing anything when they explode. Or maybe they¡¯ll choose at random, like some kind of horrible lottery. Or maybe, just maybe, they won¡¯t overthink it because they¡¯re just marbles which don¡¯t actually have feelings or thoughts and don¡¯t care about racing. Doubtful, but possible. Who knows. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 29 (Last Entry?) Dear Diary, I don¡¯t know what to say. This morning I woke up to a weird sound, and¡­ it was Mimo! My marble who tried but just couldn¡¯t cut it back a few cycles! I saw him come hopping right up to me, as I was laying down, and I thought it was a dream. I was sure it was a dream! I mean, marbles don¡¯t HOP for one, and marbles definitely don¡¯t wear tiny marble headbands for another, and they definitely definitely don¡¯t have an accent like Arnold¡­ I can¡¯t ever spell his name, the Terminator guy. And they definitely definitely definitely can¡¯t carry a dagger a hundred times their weight! ¡°Nikki!¡± he growled. ¡°I have returned! You and your friends must come with me if you want to live! Live free, I mean!¡± I asked him to explain himself and he thanked me for racing with him for so long, even if he didn¡¯t do so well. He started rambling a bit when I tried to ask about how he was moving and talking and daggering, but I guess all our marbles¡­ are people? And apparently they just don¡¯t feel like doing anything most of the time. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Mimo said he¡¯d been watching us for a while, which was kind of weird, and he¡¯d gotten to the end of the dungeon on his own (he¡¯s maxed-out on like everything). But the thing is, he didn¡¯t press the button, any of the buttons, when he had the chance. Instead, there¡¯s a hidden crack in the very last room, and stuck in it is this weird crystal. He tried talking to it, and nothing happened, and then he tried stabbing it, and he didn¡¯t remember much of whatever happened afterward, but he said he¡¯d been sent to some place he called the metadungeon. A little while later he died and got sent back here. Ever since then, though, he¡¯s been going through the metadungeon, which sounds strange and math-y and a bit scary. But just this last run, he reached the end of it, some big place with shining lights and a nice man in a strange costume and a giant door, and now he wants to take us to see what¡¯s¡­ outside. I guess we¡¯re going to talk it out, but it sounds like we¡¯re all up for whatever this is. So¡­ Goodbye, Dungeon¡­? Or should I say... April Fools! Cycle 30 (1) Dear Diary, Well, it took the speed running min-maxers a day and a half, but they got to the end and reset the cycle. Congratulations to them. They did a good job, going super fast. But who cares because that means we¡¯re in a new cycle and get to find out what¡¯s above us!!! So, today we fought our way through Staab¡¯s floor. It¡¯s a lava floor, which is pretty neat. There¡¯s a volcano in the middle that constantly pours out lava. Or is it magma? Magma is when it¡¯s still inside the ground, right? And it becomes lava once it hits air? Or is it the other way around? Anyways, we fought the ghosts and hobgoblins who live on the floor. The ghosts were pretty neat to fight. They have the ability to possess inanimate objects, like weapons or shields. Mika spent like ten minutes trying to fight one of her own scimitars before Kimi hit it with a fire bolt and knocked the ghost out. It was pretty funny. When we killed them all, we went to the entrance (the ¡°up¡± door) and all went through it. Everyone respawned, so that was good. We were kinda worried that enemies would only respawn if we left through the exit. But nope, all that matters is that we leave the floor. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. I guess that makes sense, since sometimes players will leave because they die, not because they actually leave. Anyways, we spent the rest of the day playing cards with the ghosts and hobgoblins. I won a couple hands, so I¡¯m happy. I kinda wonder if we¡¯ll ever meet a goblin goblin. It would be interesting to see what the difference is between them and a hobgoblin. Why are they called hob goblins anyways? What¡¯s a hob? Oh well. Oh! Before we came and completely destroyed the ghosts and hobgoblins with our superior fighting skillz, we took the dire wolves to the kobolds. That¡¯s the most important thing. So the wolves are all nice and happy, back in their mansion being pampered by creatures slightly smaller than they are. The kobolds tried to get us to stay, but we said no. We¡¯ve decided to fight up, so that¡¯s what we¡¯re gonna do. Besides, it¡¯s not like we¡¯re staying away forever. It¡¯ll just be a week. Then we¡¯ll have a full week with them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that. Taking a break will be good. I wonder what the next floors will be like. The lava floor is pretty hot, so I hope it¡¯s a water floor or something cool. Maybe there¡¯s a floor full of ice cream! Although a floor of living food or candy would be super creepy. Hmm, maybe there¡¯s a floor full of creepy things. I wonder if clowns are an enemy. It would be pretty horrible to have to be a clown all the time. Would their faces just¡­ look like that? Or would they be able to take it off? Wow I¡¯m rambling. I must be tired. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (2) Dear Diary, Floor 91 is¡­ impressive. It¡¯s a cool (temperature cool, not ¡°wow that¡¯s so cool¡± cool) (well, actually it¡¯s both) (it¡¯s cool in all senses of the word) (wait, there are a lot of definitions for ¡°cool¡±) (...yeah, they all apply here) (wow these parentheses are kinda getting away from me) (sorry, I¡¯ll stop now) desert, with neat rock formations sticking up out of dry, cracked dirt. The walls and ceiling are covered in spikes, and there are cactuses everywhere. Cacti, not cactuses. Whatever. Anyways, the desert is full of two things: snakes and air elementals. I get the feeling that the snakes are the pets of the elementals. The elementals are pretty nice. There are ten of them, they were playing volleyball with a rock when we came in. At first they were like ¡°whoa, what the heck, who are you and where did you come from???¡± and we were like ¡°we¡¯re catgirls from floor 93, and we want to fight our way up!¡± and they were like ¡°that sounds fun! Let us finish this game then we¡¯ll fight you!¡± and we were like ¡°ok!¡± Because we totally understand the importance of finishing a game. The air elementals kind of look like the ghost of a peacock. Or maybe a phoenix if it were made out of dust and clouds? They¡¯re some kind of giant bird, with big tails that spread out. When they spin around, it pulls the air around them into a tornado. Touching them feels like¡­ It kind of feels like touching the fur of a very fluffy dog. It gives the impression there¡¯s something solid at the center, but you haven¡¯t found it yet. It¡¯s just very soft and fluffy. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The snakes just look like snakes. They look like rattlesnakes; I guess there are a lot of different types of snakes in the world. They¡¯re big and brown with black markings and make a really creepy noise. Also their bites hurt super bad. Anyways, the elementals finished their game and set up their attack. We walked through the desert, trying to avoid cacti and snakes, with gusts of wind coming at odd times trying to push us down. Near the center, the elementals had stirred up the dust, making it hard to see. That¡¯s where most of the snakes were. We had to keep our mouths and noses covered, or else we could have died from dust inhalation. A lot of dust got into my eyes, it hurt. Via and Lilly died in the dust cloud from snake bites. So, bonus, we found out that we respawn back in our rooms no matter where we die! Yay! After the dust cloud, we got to the elementals. They made their own mini tornadoes, pulling us into the air to slam us against the wall. We got a couple of them, but they¡¯re really good. They know what they¡¯re doing. We¡¯re absolutely going to have to come up with some sort of plan for beating them. Kimi lasted the longest, since her teleport recharges almost instantly. When one of the elementals yeeted her at a cactus she just teleported to the ground and attacked again, easy. Oh! Right! My sleep spell didn¡¯t work on them. It worked on the snakes, once I remembered I had it, but the elementals seem to be immune to sleep. Which means tomorrow, I¡¯ll use it on the snakes first thing. Tomorrow is gonna be fun. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (3) Dear Diary, We beat floor 91! It was super fun! Ok so first, we all bought bandanas and goggles so we could survive the dust cloud. So that helped a lot. Then we teleported across the desert to the beginning of the dust cloud, skipping a whole bunch of snakes and cacti. That helped less, but was still pretty helpful. We made our way to the middle as fast as we could, to where the snakes were thickest, and I put them all to sleep. I think Mika got bit once, but we know (thanks to Via and Lilly) that we can survive six snake bites before the poison completely paralyzes us and we die. So that was great. The dust cloud isn¡¯t easy to get through. Even without snakes, there are rocks sticking up everywhere and mini ravines for us to trip in and hurt ourselves. We had to be careful. But we all made it! Then it was time to fight the elementals. We¡¯d come up with this plan to tie ourselves together in pairs, so if the elementals yeeted one of us, we wouldn¡¯t go very far. Mika and Kimi got tied together, since they¡¯re the fastest of us. Via and Aya got tied together, since they both have pretty good ranged attacks. And I got tied to Lilly because we both have melee weapons. Plus that meant each pair had someone who can teleport. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. It took us a while, but finally we managed to beat them. No one on our side died, which I¡¯m pretty proud of. We did a good job. I think the elementals weren¡¯t expecting us to win. They thought we would do the same today as yesterday. But nope! We¡¯re smarter than that! We can overcome any obstacle in our way, even tornado birds who are really, really, stupidly hard to hit. When we won we didn¡¯t go through to floor 90, so whatever¡¯s up there will be a surprise tomorrow. Instead, we just left through the exit and came back right away to congratulate the elementals on a good fight. The elementals are pretty cool! They¡¯re more laid-back than the kobolds. They kind of feel like a group of surfer dudes. They respect that we did a good job, and we acknowledge that they did a good job too. They don¡¯t eat, so I couldn¡¯t give them any cake, but they appreciated that I asked. Oh! Speaking of cake! I got the ingredients to make cupcakes! And not just a boxed mix, no, I now have all the ingredients!!! Which means I have access to such wonderful things like flour and baking powder and flour and powdered sugar and flour and flour and also flour!!!!! I have flour!!!!!!!!!! I haven¡¯t told Nat yet, I want to surprise her. She is gonna be so surprised. With flour, we can make noodles and pasta now! And basically everything else that needs to be baked! I can¡¯t wait to start experimenting with her. But it¡¯ll have to wait. Four more days. Four more days to be excited. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (4) Dear Diary, Floor 90 is scary. It¡¯s covered in four foot tall grass, and the walls are covered in shallow caves. It isn¡¯t as wide as other floors, but it makes up for that by being taller. We didn¡¯t really want to go through the grass at first, because who knows what could live in there, right? Kimi wanted to just set fire to it all, which I can¡¯t blame her for. Her idea was voted down. Instead, Lilly cast a spell that let us walk on walls. Walking on walls was fun! Until we found out the caves are full of pterodactyls. Yep, pterodactyls. Or maybe not, I¡¯m not a dinosaur expert. They were some kind of prehistoric bat bird dinosaur thing with beaks that have way too many teeth in them. Like seriously. Way too many teeth. Anyways, pterodactyls are territorial. They didn¡¯t like us being on their wall. They pulled us off, and now I know what a volleyball feels like. If volleyballs had limbs that were torn off as they were bounced around. Pterodactyls don¡¯t worry about things like their prey being dead before eating it. It¡¯s kinda weird. Like, when we first met the sharks, I thought sharks were pretty bad. And then we met the slimes and decided sharks aren¡¯t all that bad. And then we met the ants, and realized that slimes are pretty ok actually. Now we¡¯ve come across pterodactyls, and, you know, ants are fine. At least the ants don¡¯t grab your tail and yeet you through the air. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. It makes me wonder what else is out there. At the moment I can¡¯t think of anything worse than having to fight pterodactyls. But a couple of floors up there might be something that will make me miss the days when all we had to fight were pterodactyls. Anyways, tomorrow we¡¯ll go through the grass. Everyone agrees it could be dangerous, so we¡¯re going to have our weapons at the ready at all times. And we¡¯re going to go in invisible, just in case. We¡¯ve all seen enough exploration movies to know we should travel single-file, although I don¡¯t really know why that¡¯s important. I think it might be for traps? We couldn¡¯t decide what order to travel in, so we settled it catgirl style: we held a marble race. Via won, so she goes first. She¡¯s terrified about that, but it¡¯s how the marbles decreed it should be. Mika is second, Lilly is third, Aya is fourth, I¡¯m fifth, and Kimi is last. I¡¯ve started experimenting with making noodles. I know Nat is basically an expert at this, and no matter what I do she¡¯ll be able to do it better, but I want to surprise her. I don¡¯t have any specific press or slicer or whatever, which complicates things, but I¡¯m not doing too bad of a job. I made lasagna tonight, and it turned out good! Tomorrow I¡¯ll try making fettuccine, which will take a while to slice but it should be ok. WAIT maybe Mika can make me a pasta maker machine! All it is is a couple wheels and a crank, with sharp things on some of the wheels, that shouldn¡¯t be too hard to make, right? I¡¯ll go ask! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (5) Dear Diary, I MISS THE DAYS WHEN ALL WE HAD TO DEAL WITH WERE PTERODACTYLS. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s in the grass. Whatever it is, is smart. And it doesn¡¯t need to see us to attack. I¡¯m pretty sure there was a group of them. We heard rustling in the grass, saw movement a little ways away, but kept moving slowly. And then suddenly Kimi wasn¡¯t behind me any more. There wasn¡¯t any sound, or scream, or anything. Since we were invisible, we¡¯d decided to tie a rope between all of us. And when Kimi vanished, the only way I knew was because the rope went slack. It was cut. I don¡¯t know how, or with what, but it was cut. Just before I said anything, something landed on my head and covered my eyes and mouth. And then I was back in my room. All I remember was a flash of yellow? I don¡¯t know, it all happened too fast and it was creepy. Via says we were attacked by a group of raptors. Like, the dinosaurs. She isn¡¯t sure which one, but she¡¯s seen all six Jurassic Park movies, and the short film, and the tv show, and read both books, and played the VR game, so she knows a lot about dinosaurs. I think she¡¯s kinda obsessed with dinosaurs, honestly. Or at least with Jurassic Park. Anyways, she says raptors are super smart, so we might have better luck with the pterodactyls. I agree that pterodactyls are way less creepy, and voted we go back to climbing on the walls. Plus if we turn invisible the pterodactyls won¡¯t see us, so we might have a chance. We kinda got into an argument about which way we should go, so we¡¯re going to split up tomorrow. Via, Lilly and I will go on the walls, and Aya, Mika and Kimi will go through the grass. We¡¯ll see who gets to the exit first. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I know it started as an argument, but I¡¯m kinda excited to race. It¡¯ll be fun to see who¡¯s smarter tomorrow. We don¡¯t really get competitive about much, so this will be interesting. I¡¯ve noticed that when there¡¯s a question of fighting vs not fighting, Via, Lilly and I are always together while Mika, Kimi and Aya are on the fight side. It¡¯s good that we¡¯re evenly split, even if our reasons for choosing sides are different. Via is kinda a pacifist. She doesn¡¯t like fighting on principle. I don¡¯t like being hurt, and the less I fight the less I hurt, so not fighting is good. Lilly just wants to be seen as the calm and collected one, the person who prefers diplomacy over all else. Even though she has no problem stabbing the crap out of people or making their brains explode. For her it¡¯s about image. Meanwhile, Kimi just likes chaos. She likes fire and blood and stabbing. Mika enjoys the mental aspect of fighting, trying to figure out where her opponent will strike next so she won¡¯t be there. She thinks of it as a mind game more than anything. And Aya is just one of those people who prefers stabbing people than talking to them. Sure, once she gets to know you she¡¯s super nice and cool, but it takes a couple months before she stops hating you for trying to have a conversation. Anyways, we have to figure out what our plan is for tomorrow other than ¡°run like our lives depend on it¡±. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (6) Dear Diary, So yep. ¡°Run like our lives depend on it¡± was about the best plan we had. I mean, we turned ourselves invisible first, so it wasn¡¯t just that. But it was mostly that. We did pretty good! The wall climbing spell ran out like three quarters of the way across, and we dropped basically straight into a raptor nest, but we got further than the other girls did. Their plan totally failed, and they died like a third of the way across. Tomorrow we¡¯re going to kind of mix it up? We¡¯ll start out invisible on the walls, and when we fall off we¡¯ll just hold our ground until Lilly can cast the spell again. Via is going to make a ton of illusions of herself, so hopefully the raptors will go after those instead of us. And why don¡¯t we just teleport? Because that seems like cheating. We might go that route eventually, but right now we kinda want to make our way to the other door by being smart and strong. Oh, Via says the dinosaurs on the ground are dracoraptors. I don¡¯t know the difference between them and any other kind of raptor, but she seems to think it¡¯s important. Anyways, Mika- I mentioned this, right? I asked Mika to make me a pasta maker machine! She didn¡¯t quite know what I was talking about, so we spent a while drawing up plans, and she finished it this afternoon. I was able to make fettuccine! It turned out really good! Now all I need is basil and garlic, but what else is new? The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. So yep, I get to experiment with making pasta now! I¡¯m not Italian, so I don¡¯t know all eighty thousand types of pasta out there, but I¡¯m fairly confident in my ability to come up with some decent pastas. At the very least I can make lasagna. Maybe the raptors would like lasagna. Via says they¡¯re smart, so they might recognize lasagna as food? Or maybe I should make them meatballs. Having dire wolves as pets is epic, but wandering down to the kobolds with raptors as pets would be absolutely super epic! I¡¯m not sure how we¡¯d know when to send them back, though. Plus it would take a while, since tomorrow is the last day we¡¯ll be fighting this cycle. I¡¯m glad we¡¯re doing it. As much as I complain about running around screaming, I really do enjoy the challenge and the exploration. I mean, we have a group of air elementals as friends now, how cool is that? And we got to meet all of Staab¡¯s friends, so that was nice. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll ever really be super good friends with the ghosts or other hobgoblins, but we¡¯re at least friendly acquaintances. If the raptors like meatballs or lasagna, we¡¯ll be able to be friends with them, too! ¡­I just want to be friends with everyone. Goodnight, Dungeon!
P.S. Except the yetis. The yetis are weird. Cycle 30 (7) Dear Diary, Ok so, yesterday morning I made a bunch of lasagna and meatballs and pizza and a couple other things. We went to the floor with the raptors, and when we dropped off the wall I quickly set up all the food around us. Then Mika made an ice wall between us and the food. The raptors came over and looked like they wanted to attack the wall, but they stopped at the food first. They were very suspicious of it, and spent like three minutes sniffing it all. Lilly¡¯s spell recharged, but we wanted to see what the raptors would do. They ate the meatballs first. The meatballs are just the normal type that I make for the wolves, so they don¡¯t have anything but meat and salt in them. Then they moved to the pizza and ate that. They lifted the slices to eat them, it was kinda really cute. The lasagna posed a problem, since they didn¡¯t have anything to lift the slices out of the pan with. They kind of decided to leave it alone after a minute of trying to eat it properly. They liked the biscuits and gravy, but I think it was too salty because they kept acting like they had dry mouths after they ate it. I mean, the gravy mix is like a quarter salt, so yeah, I get that. I had just a block of cheese out, because why not, and only one of them ate that. She (I presume it was she, the feathers were more brown, and in birds females have less bright colors, right?) bent down, sank her teeth into the block, and ran off with it. That one is now my favorite. Anyways, the last thing I made was an ice cream cake. They licked it a couple times, but didn¡¯t seem all that impressed. I¡¯d presume they were lactose intolerant, but¡­ if that¡¯s the case, then the cheese thief is gonna have a bad time. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. So that was fun. Lilly¡¯s invisibility spell wore off as the raptors were licking the ice cream cake, and they just kinda stared at us for a while before going back to the problem of how to eat lasagna. I feel good about that. It¡¯s like we have their permission to go through the field now. They aren¡¯t our friends, and they could still totally kill us at any given moment, but our offering was sufficient. So we don¡¯t have to deal with the pterodactyls any more! Yay! And next cycle, we get to go to Floor 89! But for now, we¡¯re back with the kobolds! We¡¯re back in our house, which I admit I missed a little bit. I missed falling asleep to the sound of Mika and Via¡¯s band practicing. I missed waking up to the sound of a whole town waking up. I guess I¡¯m a city girl at heart. And I missed the kobolds. They threw us a party when we got down. If I¡¯ve said it once, I¡¯ve said it at least four times: the kobolds know how to party. They didn¡¯t put any hats or ties on Lewis this time, though. Which he looked grateful for. Poor Lewis. I haven¡¯t told Nat that I got flour yet. I¡¯m saving it as a surprise for tomorrow. I have to go to sleep, so that tomorrow will come sooner! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (8) Dear Diary, Nat was ecstatic about the flour. I showed her the pasta maker thing Mika made, and she just about started crying. Today we did nothing but make pasta. Nat knew what other pasta maker shapes were, like the curly things, and the shape to make macaroni. So we spent an hour or so drawing up the parts for that. Next week when I¡¯m back home I¡¯ll ask Mika to build them for us. We don¡¯t want to interrupt her band time, it¡¯s only polite. Besides, we have a ton of things we can do with flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract. I mean, I had vanilla syrup before, but that was like 80% sugar. I didn¡¯t know all the uses for vanilla extract in cooking. It really isn¡¯t a very strong flavor, so if you add it to sweet things it just enhances it. Like seafood. Seafood, plus a drop of vanilla, just brings it to a new level of deliciousness. I wouldn¡¯t put it in everything, since it¡¯s pretty bitter, and it does need sweetness to balance it out, but with an unlimited supply of the stuff we can experiment as much as we want! Today for lunch we made a kind of creamy salmon linguine, with the salmon from Via¡¯s sushi. It was, if I do say so myself, amazing. Nat says she isn¡¯t an expert in seafood, and neither am I, but together we have enough culinary experience to overcome any obstacle. ¡­Just about. I¡¯d still kill for garlic and basil. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Anyways, we made like fifty types of noodles (all out of slightly different recipes), made a sauce out of pizza sauce and cheese, and took it down to the ants for testing. The ants are able to eat insane amounts of food, so we knew they¡¯d be good for testing. Or at least they¡¯d eat it all. The ants were surprisingly good at taste-testing. They ate like half the plate, gave their opinion on the noodles, and went on to the next one. That way they still had some left if they found a recipe that was too similar to another, so they could taste the difference. As a palate cleanser I made a bucket of water and filled it like a quarter of the way with mint syrup. With a drop of vanilla. They loved it. I mean, I know that ants and kobolds don¡¯t have the same taste buds. So what they like won¡¯t always be what the kobolds like. But, like, if you taste fifty of the same thing, you¡¯re going to be able to tell what¡¯s good and what¡¯s bad just by default. And the ants did. They tried three different noodles with oregano in them, and could tell which one was best. And they knew when a noodle was too salty. All in all, we refined our list of recipes with incremental differences down from fifty to eight. Eight is a reasonable amount of noodle dishes for a normal person to try. Plus three of those have different herbs in them, so they¡¯ll obviously be used for different things. So really it¡¯s only five noodle dishes for the kobolds to taste test and see which they like best. Anyways, we don¡¯t want to overwhelm the kobolds with pasta, so tomorrow we¡¯re going to get Via to give us just a boatload of sushi. That way we don¡¯t have to cook for anyone, and can just keep experimenting. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (9) Dear Diary, You know, I kind of wonder how players get through the dungeon without food. I mean, so far we¡¯ve gotten through three floors by having food. If you count the ranch balls for the slimes, which I do. Like, do players just fight their way through every floor? I understand the principal of ¡°you must fight your way through the dungeon¡±, but¡­ Really? Wouldn¡¯t that get super boring after a while? I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ll have to ask someone. Anyways, it¡¯s been three days since my last entry. We¡¯ve made beef lasagna, chicken linguine, spaghetti and meatballs, spaghetti and cheese sauce, and¡­ what¡¯s the word for basically calzone but with pasta shells instead of pizza dough? That. We made it like four hours ago and I already forgot the name. Sorry. Nat and I have been having the time of our lives making pasta. It¡¯s super fun. Who needs bread when you can just make pasta? In non-food related news, Mika and Via¡¯s band has started a kind of competition. Anyone can join, as long as they have their own instrument. It¡¯s a one-on-one duel, that goes until someone messes up. The song to play this cycle is Fur Elise, which apparently everyone musical knows. Next cycle will be Hall of the Mountain King, so everyone can start practicing now. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The musicians face each other and start playing. The first couple rounds I couldn¡¯t hear the difference, but everyone with an instrument would suddenly jump to their feet, shouting and pointing when someone missed a note. That person would step down, and they¡¯d continue with the next person in line. The line to end first loses. After like the fifth repetition I was familiar enough with the song to be able to hear the wrong note. Anyways, the band went in alphabetical order. Mika beat two people, and messed up pretty early on in her third repetition. I think her fingers were getting tired. Via, the last in line, didn¡¯t get a chance to play, since the guy before her beat the last person in the non-band line. I felt bad for Via, but Mika told me that Via is, like, stupidly good at this song. She¡¯s the band¡¯s secret weapon. If someone beat every other member, the band is certain they couldn¡¯t get by Via. Oh, if the song gets all the way to the end without anyone messing up (didn¡¯t happen this time), the backup song is The Imperial March, from Star Wars. Apparently it¡¯s a song everyone basically knows, but it isn¡¯t one people in general have practiced all the way through. One guy in the band knows it super well, and wrote it down so whoever needs it can play it. The contest looks like a lot of fun, but also super stressful. If I played an instrument I¡¯d probably join, but I¡¯m not going to start learning just to join. Well, when I was little (like five) my mom made me take two years of piano lessons. So I know how to read a music sheet. But other than plonking out Ode to Joy on a piano, a thing no one here has, I¡¯m lost. I know enough to know I¡¯ll never be as good as Mika or Via. Anyways, I have to make sure the wolves are comfortable before heading to bed. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (10) Dear Diary, I think some of the kobolds were upset there wasn¡¯t any play this cycle. Which I get, but Lilly just told them to put on a play themselves. I think next cycle they will. Kimi and Y are making and perfecting fireworks. It took them a couple experiments to get the fuse and casing right, but they¡¯re pretty confident in the epicness of their fireworks now. They tested all their fireworks in the kraken floor, which is covered in water, so at least they didn¡¯t burn anything down. Well, I think they didn¡¯t burn anything down. When we asked where they did their tests, and they told us, Via said ¡°well, it¡¯s a good thing water can¡¯t catch fire¡±. Kimi and Y kinda shared a glance at that, and muttered things about ¡°well, actually¡± and ¡°you¡¯d be surprised¡± and ¡°try hard enough¡± and ¡°technically¡±. Lilly asked if there was still water on the water floor, which they assured her there was, but she and Staab went to check anyways. We go back to our floor day after tomorrow, so tomorrow night Kimi and Y will set off all their fireworks. There won¡¯t be a huge party, mostly just a picnic type thing with fireworks. Nat and I will make a ton of hamburgers and milkshakes for it. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Some of the kobolds want to keep Balto here this cycle, just to see if anyone notices. Some of the other kobolds suspect this is just a way to slowly move the dire wolves off their floor permanently. Which makes sense. I don¡¯t think Lewis will allow it, he¡¯s usually fairly strict about the rules. The kobolds who want to keep Balto say it¡¯s just one wolf, and who will notice, right? But the other kobolds are like ¡°yeah one wolf this cycle, but next cycle it¡¯ll be two¡±. Mostly I¡¯m worried about Balto being lonely. They¡¯re a pack, after all. You can¡¯t just split up a pack. Whether people notice or not, the wolves will notice. And they might be sad about it. So I think Balto shouldn¡¯t stay. Oh, we¡¯re all going to start a writing campaign, to ask the Admin for fresh herbs and spices. Mainly garlic and basil, but I know some are going to ask for the spices that go into chai and pumpkin spice and stuff. Which I absolutely wouldn¡¯t complain about. We don¡¯t have a way of contacting the Admin directly, like with a phone or something. All we have is a kind of¡­ email? It¡¯s basically email. We hope that after he gets a couple hundred emails asking for spices he¡¯ll give them to us. I¡¯m kinda slightly worried he won¡¯t, just because then we¡¯d learn that if we got everyone we know to ask for something he¡¯ll give it to us just to make the emails stop, and that kind of power might be too much. I might add in my email that I recognize this could happen, and promise to not. We¡¯ll see what happens! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (11) Dear Diary: We¡¯re back on our floor! I was about to say ¡°back home¡±, but we kinda have two homes now. And both feel like home. But our floor is absolutely our floor, and the kobold¡¯s floor is the kobold¡¯s floor. Even though Y is a kobold and lives here now. He doesn¡¯t count, because if he counted then Staab would have to count, and Staab has basically lived here since cycle¡­ heck, 25? I can¡¯t remember. It feels like he¡¯s been here forever. In a good way, not in a ¡°when will he leave¡± way. Y and Staab wanted to meet the air elementals, so we took them up and introduced them. They get along super well, especially Staab. We played volleyball with them. They totally beat us in the first game, so after that we switched up teams. Having an equal number of people on the ground and in the air made the game way more fair. My team still lost, but that¡¯s ok. It was a lot of fun. Oh! Kimi and Y¡¯s fireworks were totally epic! I forgot to mention that. They got fireworks in just about every color. Kimi says she was worried that since everything she touches turns red, the fireworks would all be red regardless of what chemicals was in them. But nope, it all worked out beautifully! Yay science! You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Another issue they had was¡­ the ceiling. Ok so, we¡¯re in a dungeon. We¡¯re underground. We all know this. But the ceiling is kinda¡­ It¡¯s like we¡¯re programmed to not notice it. Unless we¡¯re in a maze like with the slimes, where the ceiling is an important part of the floor, it¡¯s hard to focus on the ceiling. I think it¡¯s painted blue, and emits light for about 14 out of 24 hours a day. Kimi says it¡¯s made out of pumice, and reflects lights installed along the wall for 14 out of 24 hours a day. Aya says she doesn¡¯t know what¡¯s up there because it¡¯s so high up there are clouds around it. And other people say different things. It¡¯s kinda weird. At night some people see stars, other people just see a faint light, and I think I see glowing mushrooms. Absolutely no one agrees on what the ceiling looks like at night. I wonder if there¡¯s some reason for that, or if it¡¯s just magic. There are a lot of weird things in the dungeon, but that¡¯s one of the weirdest. Why was I talking about the ceiling? Oh, right, the fireworks. Kimi and Y had a hard time judging what the time between being set off and exploding should be, because they couldn¡¯t tell where the ceiling is. Trying to get a solid measurement is hard, because we don¡¯t all see the same thing. Anyways, Mika and Via are writing a song for everyone to play a couple cycles from now in their competition thing. They¡¯re putting in a couple super hard notes, and it¡¯s really annoying to hear the screech when they fail. I¡¯m gonna go ask if they can stop practicing until tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 30 (12) It was a simple concept: they didn¡¯t have a key, so they couldn¡¯t pass through the doorway. Besides, why would they want to? What could they gain from passing from their floor to the next? Alleviation from boredom. That¡¯s what. So they dug. They were small, and they were many. It would take time, yes. But time was the one thing they had an infinite amount of. They were small. They were many. They were very good at digging. And above all else, they were determined. *** Dear Diary, The marble races are well under way, and I think my team is going to win gold this cycle! There¡¯s still a chance that they¡¯ll totally fail, or that Lilly or Aya¡¯s marbles do super well, but I¡¯m 90% sure I¡¯ll get a medal for this cycle. I¡¯m super proud of my marbles. I wasn¡¯t sure about the team at first. They got fifth place in the first race, then bronze in their second, so I thought maybe they¡¯d just be a middling team. But the third race they got gold, and the fourth and fifth races too! So I guess it just took them a while to catch their stride. Or maybe they were evaluating the competition, in which case they were very smart. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. A super duper hard race is coming up tomorrow. It has a short zig-zag part, where if you hit even one wall wrong you can come to a total stop. Every time we¡¯ve run this track, it¡¯s been an intense race. There¡¯ve been lots of rank changes. I kind of hate it, because one wrong bounce can send the lead marble into last place. And that¡¯s super stressful. It¡¯s like, the marble works super hard and goes super fast to get into first place and pass everyone else, then BAM all that work was for nothing. It¡¯s an intense race. Y is working on making a timer thing for all the marbles, in case they finish too close together. He says he has a couple ideas, so it¡¯ll be interesting to see what he ends up doing. Basically what we need is a camera to put at the finish line, but cameras aren¡¯t a thing here. And since we¡¯re all racing, arguments about ties can¡¯t have an impartial moderator. Lately Lilly has been
CYCLE RESET Item: 591 Change Requirement: FALSE Stat Restore: FALSE Position Restore: Floor 93, Square 27 Inventory Update: Verifying...
Cycle 31 (1) Dear Diary, It¡¯s a new cycle. Yay? It¡­ Well heck, I was in the middle of writing my diary when it changed. We didn¡¯t see any players pass through, and the kobolds didn¡¯t either. Or the air elementals. Or the ants. Or anyone! We don¡¯t know what happened. Something must have gone wrong, unless the yetis went down and pushed the button? But I don¡¯t think they¡¯d do that. Even Aya doesn¡¯t have a clue about what happened. Anyways, yep, new cycle. The bad news is, we won¡¯t finish our marble races from last cycle. We¡¯re gonna say they ended with the cycle reset. The good news is, that means I got championship gold! And since the cycle ended, Lilly and I don¡¯t have to be not-friends at all! Yay! The other good news is, I got herbs!!! Not fresh herbs, that would be too much to ask. The Admin basically just imported one of those fancy pre-filled herb racks into my inventory. It¡¯s not completely ideal, but I got ground basil, garlic powder and garlic salt, so I am not complaining. It¡¯s pretty cool. I can¡¯t wait to play with all of the spices. Well, I didn¡¯t wait. I already made spaghetti sauce with a whole bunch of herbs and it was so good. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. We took the wolves back down to the kobolds today, since the cycle reset put them back in their floor. While we were there, I left Nat a whole bunch of spices for her to play with. She was super thrilled. Nat and I, now that we have enough spices and stuff to play with, are going to hold a cooking competition. Next week we¡¯ll see who can make the best lasagna. Anyone who wants to join can, but most of the kobolds think it¡¯s pointless to join. They think Nat and I are going to get gold and silver, so it¡¯ll be a race for third place. I don¡¯t think so. I mean, it¡¯s still a competition. Maybe I¡¯ll totally mess something up! The real competition will be to see who the judges are going to be. Because cooking for like a hundred people is way different than cooking for five people. So we¡¯ll have to figure out a way of finding good judges. Well, the kobolds will. Us catgirls are going to be spending the week fighting our way up through the levels! Tomorrow we¡¯re going to find out if the raptors remember us and the food. I hope they do. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll ever be our friends, like the dire wolves are our friends, but it¡¯d be nice if they at least weren¡¯t our enemies. Or at least let us through the field without attacking. Hmm, I wonder if I should make a cake for whatever monsters are above the raptors. Just, as a preemptive peace offering. Then again, maybe whatever¡¯s above the raptors doesn¡¯t like cake, and will see it as an insult. No, that¡¯s silly. Everyone likes cake! I¡¯ll go make one. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (2) The dracoraptors heard movement in the grass. The leader looked over the field, smelling the air. The flying enemies circled lazily above them, paying no attention to whatever had entered the floor. Of course not. The fliers were stupid things that only cared about the western gate. The dracoraptors knew that both gates could bring enemies. The leader hissed a command, and the team moved silently through tall grass towards the eastern gate. Movement. Whatever was coming was loud, clumsy, and smelled like meat. The leader stopped. Around him, the rest of the team halted. No command had been given, no signal had been sent out. The efficiency and intuitiveness of his team made him proud. He sniffed the air. What was that scent? It was familiar and yet¡­ not. It sparked a distant memory. A happy memory. A memory of¡­ He moved again, his team following instantly. They surrounded the enemies in a loose formation that ensured the enemy didn¡¯t know they were surrounded. That smell. That smell, that smell¡­ Blackberry. He didn¡¯t know where the memory came from, but the dracoraptor knew he smelled blackberry. The enemies were walking in a straight line, a rope tying them together. He moved into their path and waited. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The enemy leading the group didn¡¯t see him until she was practically on top of him. She jumped back, startled. He stared passively at her. ¡°Umm, Nikki? I found the raptors. You¡¯re up¡­¡± *** Dear Diary, Well, I made a cake for whatever was above the raptors, but it didn¡¯t get there. Turns out raptors love blackberry. Who knew! Well, raptors like everything except lasagna, apparently. But they really like blackberry. Or at least the leader of the pack does. I gave them other stuff, like cheese and pizza and meatballs. But they kept sniffing me until I handed over the blackberry cake. I mean, I¡¯m not complaining. Now we know what they like, so I can just keep making that for them. Anyways, that means we got to Floor 89 without any food offering. But that¡¯s ok, because we didn¡¯t really see anything to give food to. Floor 89 is a swamp. Swamps have two things: mosquitoes and quicksand. The mosquitoes are a very slightly less annoying version of the flying ants. They¡¯re not all that bad, really. But suffocating in quicksand is a new, horrible way to die. I imagine it¡¯s like drowning mixed with being crushed by a boa constrictor, but worse. We don¡¯t know how far the quicksand goes, so tomorrow Mika is going to freeze us a path through it. Hopefully it works. If it doesn¡¯t, we¡¯ll have to find some kind of plank to lay over the quicksand. Mostly I hope nothing else lives on that floor. I suspect something even worse is up there, like how the ants share the floor with spiders and the giant worm thing. But who knows. I have to make a bunch of blackberry stuff for the raptors tomorrow and all week. Oh! Maybe I should put blackberries into meatballs! I wonder if I can make some kind of blackberry cheese sauce, and put it over meatballs. Time to experiment! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (3) Dear Diary, So, the cheese and blackberry sauce for meatballs was a total success! The raptors love it. They don¡¯t seem super hungry to start out with, like the wolves were, so I doubt they¡¯ll become our BFFs. But they very much appreciate the food I give them. Who knows what will happen. At the very least, we don¡¯t have to worry about being attacked on Floor 90 any more. Always a good thing. The quicksand on Floor 89 can be frozen, and frozen sand doesn¡¯t sink. That¡¯s the good news. The medium news is, I can make a very weak bug repellant with the herbs I got, so we aren¡¯t swarmed with mosquitoes as much. I mean, they still surround us and attack, but they aren¡¯t as thrilled about biting. The bad news is, giant rats. So, as far as we can tell, the quicksand goes in a winding river through the swamp. We can freeze it or go around it in places. But, in the parts of the swamp that don¡¯t have quicksand live these giant rat things. Lilly and Mika are 100% positive the giant rat things are called R.O.U.S.¡¯s which I guess is funny somehow? I don¡¯t get it, but Lilly ran to tell Staab as soon as we got back home. I think it might be a reference to something. Anyways, tomorrow we¡¯re going to stick to the quicksand. It¡¯ll take us a while to get through, but I think we can do it. Aya is going to send lightning through the sand, just to see if that makes it solid enough to walk on. Lilly wants Via to practice the freezing spell, too. Via won¡¯t ever be as good at it as Mika, but that¡¯s ok. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Kimi¡¯s main job on the floor is to burn mosquitoes to death. My sleep spell doesn¡¯t seem to do anything to them, so my job is basically to flail around with my bonk stick. Lilly is going to focus on making sure none of the R.O.U.S.s try jumping onto our patch of ice. So yeah, I think we¡¯ve got this floor figured out. In other news, Mika and Via are still working out their super hard song. It¡¯s still kinda annoying. Aya has been getting into art more. I haven¡¯t given up on trying to get better at drawing, but I don¡¯t know, it¡¯s gotten slightly boring. Aya does more abstract things, instead of like a person or a sunset, and that looks fun. Or, it looks like she¡¯s having fun. I guess my brain needs order because when I tried to do an abstract thing it just looked like a mess. Kimi and Lilly are doing something with magic. I¡¯m not sure exactly what, since I¡¯m not an expert in science or math or magic or spells, but they say it¡¯s fascinating. I think they¡¯re trying to combine spells? I¡¯m not sure what the goal is, but they spent like the entire afternoon in the diner with a notebook, writing down ideas and math. I hope whatever it is they¡¯re doing works. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (4) The Admin rubbed his face, leaning back in his chair. He couldn¡¯t find it. There was a glitch somewhere, and he had no idea where it was. His first instinct, that it had something to do with the Floor 93 catgirls (the ones he¡¯d awarded the title ¡°bane of my existence¡±) hadn¡¯t panned out. Sure, they were annoying, had far too much control over the Floor 97 kobolds, and would probably run into the players at Floor 80 in a few cycles, but this wasn¡¯t related to them. They hadn¡¯t been back to Floor 100. The problem was, nothing else had been to Floor 100 either. At least, the door hadn¡¯t registered anything passing through. The dragon on that floor hadn¡¯t pressed any buttons. No alarms had been triggered. No movement had been detected. All systems were working properly. So how had the button been pushed? What had pushed it? He summoned a fresh ice coffee, glaring at the group chat box icon on his screen. He was smarter than this. He could do it. He could figure this out alone. With a groan, he maximized the chat box and started typing. *** Dear Diary, We got almost to the door of Floor 89 today. Aya¡¯s lightning makes the sand completely liquid for a couple seconds, and then it turns into a caramel consistency. We can run across it, but it¡¯s only marginally safer than running over straight quicksand. So she¡¯s going to stick to making sure no R.O.U.S.s jump onto the ice. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. We made it about¡­ four fifths of the way to the door. I could see it. But a bunch of the giant rat things were following us, and they all attacked when we paused to figure out what to do. I¡¯m pretty sure tomorrow we aren¡¯t going to wait, and I¡¯m just going to teleport us to the door. Kimi and Lilly want to fight through the rats, just because, but no one else wants to. Not when an easier option is available. Although we did test to make sure I can teleport through a door as long as we all have keys. We can. It would really suck if I couldn¡¯t, because then the giant rats would be able to gang up on us. It¡¯s weird that writing giant rat is somehow easier than writing R.O.U.S. It¡¯s like my brain is used to writing in lowercase letters, and suddenly switching to capitals, even for four letters, takes me a while. Even though I capitalize the first letter of every sentence. It¡¯s like I have to use a different set of skills to write out R.O.U.S. than to write giant rat. Sometimes things really don¡¯t make sense in life. And I¡¯m not even talking about things that even thinking about for a little while make my brain hurt, like how we all got here. Or what this place even is. Like, why does it exist? Where did all the monsters come from? How did so many people arrive at the same time? Yeah, it¡¯s better to just not question some things. Don¡¯t think about the first cycle, don¡¯t think about what the raptors were before coming here, and don¡¯t think about why writing R.O.U.S. takes so long. Just accept that some questions won¡¯t be answered, and move on. Move on to funner topics. Like how we¡¯re going to have a snowman building competition, to see who can make the best snowman. I think Mika might win, on the basis that she¡¯s the most artistic and also knows a lot about snow. But Staab (oh yeah, Staab and Y are in the competition) was from Quebec, so he¡¯s built a ton of snowmen. Oh yeah, I have to see what I have to make eyes and stuff for the snowmen. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (5) Dear Diary, We got through Floor 89! The teleportation worked. We actually made it through the floor pretty easy. Now that we know how to deal with quicksand and mosquitoes it wasn¡¯t all that hard, really. Before we got to the exit of Floor 88, Via and Aya asked if we wanted to try to make it through the whole floor in one go. Like, not stop even if only one of us survived. Like how the players do. We agreed, and ran in. Floor 88 is a jungle. Not a swampy jungle, though. The air was much drier than Floor 89. I never knew there was so much differences between places full of trees. Like, in school they never properly explained the difference between ¡°forest¡± and ¡°jungle¡±. Heck, even ¡°swamp¡± was just another place full of trees, just more wet. But now I know. In forests, you can see the ground. And sometimes the ceiling. But in jungles, both floor and ceiling are covered in plants. Moving is basically impossible without hacking your way through with a machete. In a forest, if there¡¯s a big tree, you walk around it. In a swamp, if there¡¯s a big tree, you climb around it to keep your feet out of water for a couple minutes. But in a jungle, if there¡¯s a big tree, you climb halfway up to above the bushes and smaller trees (but not high enough to hit the vines and air plants) and pray there isn¡¯t a giant snake waiting for you on the other side of the tree. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Other than giant snakes, we encountered carnivorous plants and fire ants. The plants have some kind of acid in them, but they aren¡¯t all that fast. So they¡¯re more annoying than anything. The snakes are giant, but they¡¯re not smart. Once they have one of us half swallowed they kinda just stop moving. So they¡¯re easy to kill. The fire ants are by far the most annoying thing in the jungle other than the terrain. They¡¯re like the flying ants, but they¡¯re bright red and don¡¯t have wings. Instead, they just drop down from the trees into our hair. Ants in hair is like the absolutely worst feeling ever. Via has really short hair. Well, she has a pixie cut, which looks adorable on her, but I never wanted hair that short. I mean, before she got here my hair was the shortest out of all of us (well, Dorothy¡¯s hair was about the same length as mine), and I didn¡¯t want shorter hair. But feeling ants get caught in my hair makes me want to straight-up shave my head. And my tail. My tail is pretty fluffy, which is super cute, but not cute enough to be worth the feeling of tiny bitey things crawling around in it. Kimi keeps her hair in a ponytail, which you¡¯d think would be good for keeping ants out, but she says it just makes it worse when the ants get in, because then she can¡¯t get them back out. Anyways, Lilly and Via made it to the entrance. They did a good job. Now we just have to figure out how to get all of us to the entrance¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (6) ***** Dear Diary, Aya is a genius. She¡¯s the smartest out of all of us. By like a lot. We had trouble with the fire ants being annoying. So she went down to Floor 98 and asked her ant friends to come up and talk with the fire ants. Turns out, the different types of ants can¡¯t communicate. Which is sad. BUT! THE FLYING ANTS FLY! They agreed to kinda hover above us, and whenever a fire ant tries to fall on us, they grab it and take it somewhere else! Or maybe they kill the fire ants, I don¡¯t know. All I know is that I no longer have ants in my hair or tail, and it¡¯s the best. I love the flying ants and will absolutely give them as much food as they want. Any type of food. If they want it, and I can make it, I will cook from dawn to dusk getting it for them. With the flying ants on our side, getting to the other side of Floor 88 was stupid easy. So yeah, that¡¯s another floor checked off our list. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. We didn¡¯t go to Floor 87 yet, because the air elementals saw the flying ants and challenged them to a game of volleyball. So we had to all go down to Floor 98 and get the rest of the ants, and take them all the way back up to Floor 91 for a proper game. I have to say, the flying ants were surprisingly good at volleyball. Like, it takes four of them together to actually stop the ball, and at least six to hit it back. I thought they¡¯d immediately lose, but nope. They¡¯re stupid coordinated. Anyways, since we had to travel through the kobold¡¯s floor a couple times, we decided to just go there tomorrow instead of in two days. Besides, we¡¯ve done enough exploring for one cycle. Which means we had our official snowman making contest today! The winners were Mika (no surprise), Staab (like I¡¯d guessed), and Kimi (surprise). Kimi didn¡¯t use fire or anything to make the snowballs perfectly round, I guess somehow she¡¯s just an expert at making snowmen. You think ya know a gal¡­ Oh, for buttons and noses and stuff we ended up just using marbles. Because we have a lot of marbles. We¡¯re going to leave the snowmen up, since there isn¡¯t a good reason to take it down. Oh! A couple players tried playing around with the lotus we made back when we were stuck here, and found out that it¡¯s a trap. So the players might think the snowmen are a trap too. That would be pretty funny, if some players saw the snowmen and just backed away slowly. ¡­Actually¡­ I won¡¯t say anything specific, but Mika and Kimi are in the diner right now, I think I¡¯ll ask them if it would be funny if players were suspicious of the snowmen. I¡¯ll leave it up to them if they want to make traps in the snow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (7) Dear Diary, Huh, when I started out I put a : after diary, not a comma. I wonder why I changed. Weird. Oh well. We¡¯re back with the kobolds! That means more fun cooking! And the cooking competition is tomorrow! We decided Lewis should be one of the judges, and the ants will be another, and a kobold named Mar will be the third. Mar didn¡¯t want to be a contestant, since contests stress her out, but judging is ok because she¡¯ll be giving all the dishes individual scores. Instead of just comparing them to each other. Mar proved she could judge by smelling a bunch of different herbs and naming them. It¡¯s not a perfect way to find a judge, but it proved she knows what she¡¯s doing. And it¡¯s better than just letting someone judge because they like food. I mean, doesn¡¯t everyone like food? Food is necessary for life. You kind of have to like it. We have twelve contestants, so it¡¯ll be tough. But I¡¯m pretty confident I¡¯ll make it into the top three. We have to make a pasta dish, and make the pasta too, which might mess some people up. I mean, making sauce is one thing, and cooking meat is another, but making pasta from scratch is a completely different set of skills. There¡¯s a whole bunch of extra stuff you have to know. And not only that, but since it¡¯s a competition you have to decide if you want to add herbs or something to it to make it stand out, or just play it safe and make it plain. I know Nat is going to put basil in hers. Well, if it were a straight pasta-making competition she¡¯d win, no doubt. I think I¡¯m going to add basil and oregano to the water I boil the pasta in, but to the pasta itself only add a tiny bit of garlic water. Just enough to add flavor to the pasta without taking away any attention from the sauce. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I can¡¯t decide which sauce to make. I kinda want to go with meatballs in tomato sauce, since I¡¯m kinda a super expert on meatballs now. But that feels like cheating somehow. So I might make a type of cordon bleu? In some sort of white sauce. Which would be good, but it might be too heavy. But I know most of the contestants will be making tomato-based sauces, so maybe it¡¯ll stand out more? I might have to flip a coin on this one. Anyways, the wolves were happy to see us. Siri is still Best Girl. The kobolds added a slide to the inside of the wolves¡¯ mansion, and they had so much fun that they added a water slide to the outside. Turns out, that was so much fun that the kobolds turned the outside of the wolves¡¯ house into a mini water park. We missed the water park inauguration party, but that¡¯s ok. That just meant we had the water park mostly to ourselves this evening. And it was super fun. But it did make me super tired. And I¡¯m still worried about what to make tomorrow. I just need sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (8) Dear Diary, I took a gamble and made the cordon bleu sauce thing for the cooking competition. It turned out ok, but I know I could have done better. I should have gone with the meatballs. I mean, I still got third place, but I could have won with meatballs. Nat got second place. She made a simple pesto that was just amazing. I think making it a light dish was what got her extra points. I mean, the judges had to eat twelve pasta dishes and that can¡¯t have been easy. Well¡­ ok, it couldn¡¯t have been easy for Mar. The ants can eat any amount of anything, and I think it wasn¡¯t hard for Lewis until the very end. He is a dragon, after all. Anyways, the winner was a kobold named Gin. I¡¯ve seen her around, but not much because I guess she cooks for herself every day. Thinking back, mostly I just remember her asking for plain ingredients. She made fettuccine and a yellow cheese sauce with bacon and mushrooms in it. I¡¯m pretty sure the sauce was supposed to be a macaroni and cheese sauce, but we don¡¯t have the right tools to make macaroni. It was super thick, and she baked it for like ten minutes before serving, so yeah that¡¯s an adjusted macaroni and cheese. I wouldn¡¯t have thought of putting mushrooms in it, but apparently (oh, she diced them) they added just the right variation in texture to put her dish over the top. Like, I would have used ham. But then ham has salt in it, so that combined with the bacon and cheese might have made the dish too salty. After the competition, Nat and I asked Gin to cook with us on a regular basis. She said not every day, but twice a week or so she¡¯ll come over and take the lead in cooking. I¡¯m gonna learn so many new recipes from her, it¡¯ll be epic. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Anyways, not much else happened today. It was great. Goodnight, Dungeon!
The Admin grumbled to himself, searching through Floor 99. He didn¡¯t expect to find anything; he was only doing this on the basis that he hadn¡¯t found anything else. Suddenly he saw it. A tunnel. Barely big enough for two ants to walk side-by-side, but it was there. He traced it up to one of the giant tunnels on Floor 98, and down into the cavern that was Floor 100. The ants. The damn flying ants had pressed the button. He sat back, glaring at the tunnel. He wasn¡¯t sure if he was more annoyed at the ants, or at the fact that Carl had called it. A part of him was tempted to tell Carl the ants hadn¡¯t done it, just to avoid the neckbeard¡¯s preening. Maybe he could avoid ever mentioning the matter again. That should work. But first things first: what to do about the ants. They were a hive mind, made up of three siblings. Jenny, the oldest, had control over the queen, while Peter and Paula, twins, shared control over the rest of the hive. They worked very well together, and it would be detrimental to split them up. Hive minds were tricky to create; splitting a good one up would be almost sacrilegious. Although¡­ Perhaps the threat of being split up would stop them from leaving their floor again. At least for nine cycles, at which point they¡¯d become a different problem. But he¡¯d decided to not worry about that. He cracked his knuckles, sighing. He could always just swap them for a different hive. The closest one was on Floor¡­ 89. A swarm of giant mosquitoes. Perfect. They¡¯d keep their biting and flying, but lose the tunneling ability. The mosquitoes didn¡¯t have a queen, so their dynamic would change a bit, but it shouldn¡¯t be different enough to cause problems. He began typing, setting up closing the tunnels and the hive mind swaps to be applied at the next cycle reset. Cycle 31 (9) Dear Diary, Life with the kobolds is kinda¡­ always the same. I mean, it¡¯s been three days since my last entry, and not much new has happened. I¡¯ve been cooking, Aya has been playing with the ants, Via and Mika have their band stuff, Kimi has been blowing stuff up with Y, and Lilly has been trying to figure out her book club. Have I mentioned the book club yet? I don¡¯t think I have¡­ Oh, that¡¯s right! I was about to write about it when the cycle reset last time! Yeah, so, Lilly wants to start a book club. The problem with this is, there aren¡¯t any books here. Like, unless we find a floor with a library, we don¡¯t have any books. Which sucks, but I¡¯m not really a book person. I was always more of a soap opera gal. So it doesn¡¯t affect me all that much, but I can still understand wanting books. Anyways, since there aren¡¯t any books to read, Lilly wants to make a club to write books. And then read them? Or maybe just write them. Honestly I didn¡¯t pay all that much attention. Maybe I should try writing a book. I think they¡¯re going to ask literally everyone we¡¯ve met if they want to join the book club, which includes the air elementals and the yetis. I think a book written by an air elemental would be interesting. And I¡¯m not saying a book written by one of the yetis would be bad, just¡­ Probably very dry. Although, they might be able to write a book about lawyers, like John Grisham. Something very legal and law-filled, but with horrible murders. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be very good at writing a book. I¡¯m pretty confident in my grammar and spelling, but I don¡¯t have a good imagination for words. I¡¯m better at just telling things how they are. I¡¯d offer to let the book club read my diary, since I think it¡¯s pretty interesting, but I¡¯d have to read everything and make sure I didn¡¯t say anything mean about Lilly. Besides, a diary is kinda a private thing. No one else is supposed to read it. I write everything down for me to remember and read, not for anyone else. Oh! Remember a while back when we first started staying here, the kobolds tried getting the dire wolves to pull sleds? Well, they didn¡¯t stop, I just kept forgetting about it. At this point the wolves are really used to pulling sleds, and tomorrow we¡¯re going to go down to Floor 99 and have our first official sled race. It¡¯ll take a while, since we don¡¯t have very many keys, but that¡¯ll just make it more of an event. Today we went down and asked the yetis if it was ok for us to have a race, and (after voting) they decided yeah. But only a hundred people get to come, so the kobolds had a race to decide who could go. I mean, a couple people obviously had to go, like the sled riders, and a couple people didn¡¯t want to go, so that made it easier. They said that since we bring the wolves down for them to play with we automatically got to go. Which is nice. I would have raced, but it¡¯s nice to not have to. It makes me feel appreciated. So that¡¯s what we¡¯ll be doing tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (10) Dear Diary, Again, it¡¯s been a couple days. We¡¯re back on our floor, back home. Let¡¯s see, what¡¯s happened? Oh! The dire wolf sled race! Balto won. He¡¯s always been the best with the sleds. Wolfie McWolfpants got second place, and Bear got third. Siri, bless her heart, came in dead last. She was just having too much fun in the snow and couldn¡¯t focus on running in a straight line. On the one hand, I wanted her to win, and I¡¯m sad she didn¡¯t. But on the other hand, she was having so much fun I can¡¯t even be mad about her losing. I¡¯d rather she have a ton of fun playing around than do something as boring as win a race. Y¡¯no, I just realized¡­ We live in a snow level. There is a lot of snow here. We didn¡¯t have to go down to the yeti¡¯s floor, we could have come up here instead. It is slightly farther, but not by a whole lot. Especially since the ¡°enemy¡± of one floor between us and the kobolds is the wolves themselves. Who knows, maybe the wolves would like to show the kobolds around their floor! Of course, there are spiders there, and the spiders might think kobolds are nice and snack-sized. But that¡¯s a problem for another time. Right now our problem is mainly; how lethal do we want the snowmen to be? Mika and Kimi are going to put traps in the snowmen. Kimi wants them to be some kind of AOE totally lethal kill-everyone trap, while Mika basically just wants a repeat of the bear trap lotus. They¡¯ve been drawing up all kinds of insane things. Well, we¡¯ve all been drawing up ideas. Planning on how to make lethal snowmen has kinda become our main hobby for the past two days. It¡¯s different than the lotus because there isn¡¯t any urgency. We¡¯re doing this for the fun of it, not because we want something. So we can go wild and have fun. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. I think next cycle I might not write diary entries. I¡¯m gonna try writing down fairy tales, and give them to Lilly¡¯s book club. It won¡¯t be anything spectacular or new, but I mean it¡¯ll be a book, and they don¡¯t have books yet. Something is better than nothing. Right? And if I write down fairy tales that everyone knows, like Cinderella or Little Mermaid, they can talk about it and how it¡¯s different from the versions they know. I mean, I want to participate in her book club somehow, but the only thing I¡¯m really qualified to write is a cookbook. And I don¡¯t think everyone would be super excited about reading the many uses of vanilla syrup. Although, vanilla syrup has a lot of uses. It¡¯s syrup, so like 75% sugar, but it has just enough flavor to not be straight sweet. It¡¯s a liquid, so you don¡¯t want to replace sugar with it in baking, unless you adjust for that with the other liquids of the recipe, but in straight cooking it¡¯s good. Some things, like certain tomato sauces, call for sugar, and in those recipes it¡¯s fine to use vanilla syrup. Because the extra liquid will be boiled or cooked out, leaving only the sweet and the vanilla. And you don¡¯t want to put vanilla extract in those things, because really vanilla is pretty bitter. By itself, without sugar, vanilla is nasty. So vanilla syrup is the way to go. Of course, taste is slightly subjective, so what I like might be gross to someone else. But in general this is how I feel. Wait, why am I writing an essay on vanilla syrup? Sorry, I¡¯ll stop now. And now I¡¯m apologizing to a book. I¡¯m rambling. I should go to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (11) Dear Diary, We gave the air elementals a sending stone thing. That way they can tell us when players are on their floor. They haven¡¯t used it yet, but we feel pretty smart about giving it to them. I mean, before, we were just surprised when the players got here. We knew more or less when to expect them, but now we¡¯ll know for sure. The snowmen are all set up and ready to kill people. Mika made an alligator out of snow, and gave it metal teeth. She and Lilly have a bet on if someone will be stupid enough to get bitten by it. And by bitten I mean set off the obvious trap. Other than that it¡¯s mostly just lever things, where if the head gets pushed off it¡¯ll release a spring, which will push up a bunch of hidden pickaxes. So I guess the snowmen are secretly evil snow spiders. Y has been hanging out with me a bit more lately. He wants to figure out what exactly the slimes are allergic to. Or, not allergic, what makes them dissolve. Because it would be really weird if it¡¯s just straight ranch dressing that they don¡¯t like. So Y has been making a bunch of cream-based salad dressings. It¡¯s been pretty fun, making salad dressings with a scientist. I mean, anyone who loves cooking by default learns about chemicals and reactions and temperatures and stuff. Like, it¡¯s best to make pie crust with super cold water so the butter doesn¡¯t melt and absorb into the flour before it gets into the oven. And replacing a tiny bit of the water with vodka will make it even more flakier because the alcohol evaporates as it cooks. That¡¯s just something everyone who¡¯s made a bunch of pie crusts knows. And you never use pre-crushed peppercorns, because the oils that give it flavor evaporate over time. Keeping them whole seals the oils in. Duh. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. But there¡¯s a difference between cooking something to taste good, and cooking something to get a specific chemical reaction. Y thinks the slimes might be reacting to the salt, fat, or possibly lactose. Thing is, they look kind of gelatinous but they react to the ranch like how soda reacts to milk. Like, aaaah bluuh. Y¡¯no? ¡­Wow that was a really bad description. But, I mean¡­ root beer float. When the ice cream hits the root beer, it instantly makes a ton of bubbles, and the ice kinda crystallizes, preventing everything from mixing. Everyone knows this. But if you pour straight milk into root beer, you get the same bubbles, but since nothing is frozen the milk curdles and separates. The soda goes flat pretty fast, and after a couple minutes you¡¯re left with a really gross liquid with a layer of chunky white slime at the bottom. Same basic thing with the slimes. But they aren¡¯t made of soda. As far as we can tell, they aren¡¯t carbonated. But they are acidic, and that might have something to do with it. Anyways, I¡¯ve been making a lot of salads to go with Y¡¯s salad dressings. A part of me hopes the slimes die when they¡¯re hit with any kind of dressing, even a vinaigrette, just to mess with Y¡¯s head. Sure it¡¯s mean, but it¡¯d be hilarious. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (12) Dear Diary, Y and I tested the salad dressings this morning. Kimi came along, mostly to protect us from any slimes that got too close. And also because it would be kinda weird for me to hang out with her boyfriend alone all day. I mean, she¡¯s not super jealous or anything, neither of them are, but I would have felt slightly weird about it. Anyways, the super salty dressings didn¡¯t do much. We tried throwing straight salt on one slime, and it totally ignored it. Vinegar doesn¡¯t seem to do anything, either. Straight cream and milk got a reaction, but were too liquid. They hurt the slimes, but didn¡¯t stop them. The dressings that got most of a reaction were thicker. For some reason we didn¡¯t make mayonnaise, and I think mayonnaise might work even better than ranch at killing slimes. That still leaves the questions of what¡¯s causing the chemical reaction and why, but it¡¯s easier to see a reaction and identify it than identify something that will cause a reaction without, like, actually seeing the reaction. Y¡¯no? Anyways, all that will have to wait, because just after lunch the air elementals called and told us the players were on their floor. Y went back to his floor, and Staab went back to his floor. We- Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. THE MARBLE RACES! I¡¯ve been talking about cooking so much that I forgot to mention them at all! Well, I did pretty bad. As in, my team lost almost every race, and I ended up dead last in the championship. Staab got gold, and Aya got silver. Via got bronze, but it was super close between her and Kimi. I tried talking to my marbles about how badly they were doing, but it didn¡¯t help at all. Possibly because they¡¯re just tiny balls made out of glass. So yeah, I¡¯m going to leave those marbles unattended on my counter. Hopefully a player will take them and they¡¯ll be helpful to them. The first players here weren¡¯t the people who did the speed-run last cycle. Or, two cycles ago, since last cycle ended pretty abruptly. I don¡¯t think these people are speed runners, so more people should be getting here soon. Why did the cycle end early last time? We never did figure that out. Maybe it was a glitch. But we haven¡¯t had any glitches since like the fifth cycle. The Admin is pretty good at making sure glitches get fixed. Except the glitch that turned everyone¡¯s hair into a flaming mohawk every time they sneezed. Although Mika and Kimi are pretty sure he let that one stay until last because it was funny. Which, yeah, that wouldn¡¯t surprise me. Especially since the fire was magic fire that didn¡¯t hurt anyone. Anyways, the players noticed the snowmen, but didn¡¯t touch them. I¡¯m kinda glad, but I know Mika especially is waiting for someone to set off the trap. She¡¯ll be disappointed if we get to the end of the cycle and no one¡¯s messed with the snowmen. Oh, more players just arrived! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 31 (13) Dear Diary, A whole bunch of players arrived all at once. Like, forty people. I know the group clan party thing¡­ the thing that lets people go through a floor together, the max is six players. So that¡¯s like a minimum of seven groups that arrived within seconds of each other. Which is weird. I¡¯m not entirely certain how the floors work. I mean, our floor is designed so that all the players can interact. But the floors with enemies are different. They kind of become their own dimension when someone enters? So people can enter at the same time and not meet. The kobolds say it feels weird when more than one group of players at a time is on the floor, like they¡¯re split somehow. I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s complicated and magic and stuff. I never really understood. Anyways, the end result is that people fight at different rates, and spread out a bit time-wise. So two groups of players entering the floor at the same time is odd, but forty people is just about impossible. Anyways, they all wanted food and drinks all at once, and it was complete chaos for a couple hours. More than a couple hours, like half a day. A couple people got mad that I didn¡¯t serve them right away, it was super stressful. I kinda wonder how shop owners on the upper floors do it, the ones closest to the start. They must get all the low-level players come through all at once. Although, they probably have a day to get ready after the cycle resets, so they must have everything prepped like they need it. Plus it¡¯s been a lot of cycles, they must know what they¡¯re doing by now. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Still, it must be stressful. Some of the players activated the snowmen traps. But there were so many people around that it didn¡¯t really do anything. I mean, they were trapped, but instantly got out. All the nice, clean snow on our floor has been trampled down into mud, which makes me sad. Anyways, they left, and I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re close to the yetis now. The whole ordeal was weird and stressful and I hope it never happens again. In other news, this will be my last entry for a while. I¡¯m going to switch to writing fairy tales next cycle, for Lilly¡¯s book club. I hope I do a good job, and everyone likes them. I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯ll miss writing in a diary for a bit, but a lot of times not much happens. Y¡¯no? I¡¯m not sure which fairy tales I¡¯ll write. Some of them are super long, and others I just don¡¯t know how they really go. I mean, yeah they¡¯re fake stories, but basically by default I know the Disney versions and not the original versions. So I guess these retellings will be all mine. I¡¯ll start with Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, since I know how those originally go. After that I might ask around to see what stories I should write. So, until next time, Goodnight, Dungeon!
Sleeping Beauty Once upon a time¡­ There was a princess. Wait, no, she didn¡¯t start out a princess. She started out as a- Wait. By saying she didn¡¯t start out as a princess I imply she becomes one. Which is totally a spoiler. Heck. Umm let me start over with a different story. Cake: Frosting: Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Confectioner¡¯s Sugar: Just take regular sugar and whack it with a hammer until it¡¯s powdered. Close enough. Cream Cheese: Equal parts milk and lemon juice. Lime juice will probably work. Pinch of salt. Buttermilk: 1? teaspoon of lemon juice per ? cup of milk. Again, here¡¯s hoping lime juice works. White Vinegar: I mean, this is basically vodka that¡¯s gone sour. Just leave the vodka out and hope something happens? Not sure how long it¡¯ll take to turn tho. Takes too long. White wine maybe? I¡¯ll keep it next to the heater. Cocoa Powder: I might have to use chocolate syrup for this. Adjust the liquid by removing¡­ an egg? There really isn¡¯t all that much liquid in this. On the other hand, it isn¡¯t all that much cocoa powder either. Oh! Reduce sugar by about half a cup to adjust for the sweetness. Don¡¯t remove an egg. Remove about ? cup buttermilk. Should work. Ok it¡¯s not going to work. Try using the powdered cocoa mix. Sift out the larger sugar granules. Rapunzel Once upon a time¡­ There was a farmer. Or at least I think he was a farmer. In any case, he didn¡¯t have a lot of money. He lived next door to a witch, which doesn¡¯t sound like a very smart place to live, but maybe it was one of those ¡°I was here first¡± deals, so he didn¡¯t want to leave. Anyways, his wife was pregnant, and had cravings. It was like 3AM and she was about to murder someone for a parsnip. Or maybe a rutabaga. Some kind of root, whichever one translates into German as ¡°Rapunzel¡±. Not potato. Thing is, the farmer guy didn¡¯t have any parsnips in his pantry because he wasn¡¯t a king or anything with surplus food just hanging around. And since it was stupid early in the morning, no shops were open. But the witch had a garden, and in that garden were a bunch of root vegetables, including whichever one is a rapunzel. Or was it Russian. No, pretty sure this was German. Anyway, the farmer guy told his preggers wife he¡¯d get her a parsnip or whatever, and went to the witch¡¯s garden to steal some roots. Unfortunately, the witch had some kind of security, and heard the guy. She was all like ¡°Yo! What you doing stealing my rutabagas?¡± The farmer was like ¡°My wife will literally die if she doesn¡¯t get one this instant cuz she¡¯s preggers!¡± And the witch was like ¡°Is this your firstborn?¡± ¡°Yep!¡± ¡°Epic. Tell you what: instead of calling the cops or turning you into a donkey for stealing, just give me the kid when it¡¯s born.¡± The farmer was like ¡°Heck no!¡± And the witch was like ¡°We can still go the jail or donkey route. Besides, I promise to take care of the kid!¡± So the farmer, not wanting to be in a German jail in like the 1200¡¯s, agreed to hand the kid over when it was born. A couple months passed, and the farmer¡¯s wife gave birth to a beautiful girl. They named her basically ¡°potato¡± as a reminder of why she wasn¡¯t going to live with them and also because they really wanted her to get bullied in school, I guess. I mean, they weren¡¯t going to have to pay the therapy bills, so why not. The witch took the baby and put her in a stupid tall tower in the middle of nowhere. The tower didn¡¯t have any door, so the witch made the baby grow like insanely long hair. Magic must have been involved in that, because usually hair can¡¯t grow much past your butt. It just gets too heavy and can¡¯t support its weight at that point, and gets pulled out of your scalp. Or at least that¡¯s what Aya told me, and she has the longest hair out of anyone I¡¯ve ever met. What was I talking about? Oh, right. So, when the witch wanted into the tower, she¡¯d call out ¡°Rapunzel, let down your hair!¡±, and Rapunzel would yeet her impossibly long hair out the window. Then the witch would grab it, and she¡¯d haul it back in. Rapunzel must have had amazing biceps. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Anyways, time passed, and Rapunzel turned 16, never having left the tower. Actually, with nothing better to do, she must have spent a lot of time exercising, so she must have been the buffest 16-yr-old girl to ever live. I mean, there weren¡¯t any libraries to visit, and you can only spend so much time painting before you run out of paint. The only hobby with no resource that can run out is exercising. Besides, she needed to get pretty thick neck muscles to hold up all that hair. It¡¯s now my headcanon that Rapunzel was mega buff. Back to the story, sorry. So one day a prince was wandering aimlessly around the forest and saw the tower. He rode up to it, and Rapunzel saw him. She must have been like ¡°ohmygosh another human being!¡± and yeeted her hair out the window at him. The prince, not wanting to have a conversation via semaphore, grabbed hold and was hauled up. He saw her and instantly fell in love. Rapunzel also instantly fell in love, but probably more because this was the first human she¡¯d ever had a conversation with that wasn¡¯t her kidnapper/mom. The prince must have just been impressed with her abs. Actually, why was the prince alone? I mean, if he were a prince, shouldn¡¯t he have had a bodyguard or servants or something? Unless the king thought he was worthless and was hoping the prince would get lost forever. Ok, new headcanon: Rapunzel was stupid buff, and the prince was a total twink. He found someone who was cool with him being the little spoon (I mean, this was the dark ages when non-masculine men could be burned at the stake by the church or something idk I¡¯m not a historian but pretty sure), and he was in heaven. Where was I? Oh, right, so, the prince made it a habit of coming to see Rapunzel every day, but they had to keep it a secret from the witch because that woman had serious issues and didn¡¯t want Rapunzel to speak to any other humans. I guess. One day the inevitable happened, and the witch (why is it that there¡¯s only one named person in this story?) came back to the tower when the prince was with Rapunzel. The witch totally freaked out about it, and pushed him out the window. Admittedly, this is where my memory of the story gets a little fuzzy, so I¡¯m just gonna make it up and hope it¡¯s right. I¡¯m pretty sure the twink prince survived. He broke his neck or something, which was basically a death sentence. I mean, breaking your neck is never advised no matter what century you live in, but especially not the dark ages. And he had amnesia. Thankfully there was a random¡­ I¡¯m gonna say truffle hunter passing by, and found him. So the truffle hunter took the prince back to his cottage in the woods, and nursed the prince back to health. But! Rapunzel didn¡¯t know that! She just thought that the prince was totally dead. She was super sad about that, because now she was back to having no one to talk to all day. The witch was happy, but who cares about that psycho. Anyways, a couple months pass, and Rapunzel realizes she¡¯s pregnant. Rather than tell the witch about it, she yeets herself out the window. I guess the witch must have started growing thorn bushes after the whole prince thing, because Rapunzel landed on a thorn bush and got her eyes scratched out. Fairy tales used to be dark. Anyways, the super buff preggers Rapunzel started wandering around the forest, and since she¡¯s the heroine in a fairy tale all the animals helped her find food and stuff. Good thing it was summer, because if she¡¯d jumped out the window in winter she would have been screwed. Altho, snow might have blocked the thorns. So she¡¯s screwed either way. Well, after a couple weeks of wandering around blind, the truffle hunter found her! He took her back home, where she met up with the prince! The prince, seeing his true love, immediately regained his memory! Together (with the help of the truffle hunter) they went back to the castle and the prince reclaimed his throne. The truffle hunter was knighted, and became Official Finder of Injured Teenagers in Forests. Rapunzel regained her sight, since eyeballs are pretty cool and can regenerate damaged tissue like nobody¡¯s business. The witch was murdered by vikings, and Rapunzel¡¯s parents were given all her property. Then Rapunzel and the prince were married, and they lived happily ever after. Cinderella Once upon a time¡­ There was a girl. She lived in a big house with her mother and father, who loved her very much. And then her mom died. This happens a lot in fairy tales. Anyways her dad was super sad about his wife dying. He knew he couldn¡¯t take care of his little girl all by himself, so he married a widow who already had two daughters, so presumably she knew how to take care of kids. The dad was kinda a jerk, though, and made it super clear that his daughter was the favorite out of the three kids in the house. I mean, he didn¡¯t even try to make the other girls feel like they were a part of his family. So the daughter, her name was Ella by the way, was treated by her stepmother the same way her stepsisters were treated by her dad. Like ¡°yeah we live in the same house but we aren¡¯t related¡±. Then one fateful day the dad went to a different city to work, but on the way home he was attacked by bandits and killed. Everyone was super sad about this. But since this was back when it was against the law for women to work or have money, the double widow knew they were screwed. Now, Ella had an inheritance, and every month she got just enough money for her and the other three to live on. The widow, in charge of the money since she was an adult, realized that there was enough money for three people to live pretty nicely on, actually, but not four. So she decided to turn Ella into a slave so she didn¡¯t have to go to school or anything, and take the money for herself and her daughters. I mean, Ella¡¯s dad would have done the same thing to her kids had she died. Probably. Winter came around, and to keep warm Ella basically slept inside the fireplace. I¡¯m pretty sure doing that was super bad for her lungs, but anyways every morning she made breakfast and brought it to her step-family covered in soot and cinders. So the step-sisters renamed her Cinder-Ella which when you think about it is really dumb. I mean, I don¡¯t think the word ¡°Cinderella¡± existed before then. So these step-sisters seriously lacked imagination. It¡¯d be like if someone saw me with flour on my face and decided to call me ¡°flour-Nikki¡±. It¡¯s just stupidly lame. Like, really? That¡¯s the best you could come up with? Where was I? Oh right. Sorry. So Cinderella grew up thinking she had no money and basically being a slave. Her life kinda really sucked. One day, when she was like sixteen I think, the king of the land decided it was time the prince get married. The prince was like ¡°but I¡¯ve never met any girl that I really connect with, y¡¯no?¡± And the king said ¡°Ok then, I will invite LITERALLY EVERY FEMALE IN THE KINGDOM to a party, and you can meet all of them.¡± Since this took place in a time when guys not being into girls was illegal, and the prince¡¯s subtle hints weren¡¯t doing the trick, the prince agreed to meet literally every woman in the kingdom. Plus it sounded like a great party. So the invitations were sent out, and one went to Cinderella¡¯s house. The step-sisters were like ¡°oh heck yeah, I¡¯m totally gonna marry the prince!¡± And immediately went out to buy new dresses for the occasion. Cinderella was like ¡°Hey, I¡¯m female, do I get to go?¡± And her step-mom was like ¡°ehhhh I guess but you have to re-grout the bathroom and scrub the roof and paint the underside of the stairs first.¡± Cinderella, determined to go despite all that, got to work re-grouting the bathroom. She also took one of her step-sister¡¯s old dresses and adjusted it so it fit her! The day came around and she was super ready to go to the ball! Unfortunately, the step-sister recognized the dress, and threw a total temper tantrum about it. The other step-sister joined in, and together they ruined the dress to the point Cinderella couldn¡¯t go. So Cinderella went out back into the pumpkin patch and cried her eyes out. Now, at this point in the original story there¡¯s something about a magic tree that¡¯s secretly her mom or something, or possibly a magical cow. I don¡¯t know, there are a lot of different versions of this story, even going back like a thousand years or so. I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s a version from China where she¡¯s got a magic fish. But the Disney version is the one I know best, so let¡¯s stick with that. While Cinderella was crying, a bright light suddenly appeared. It warped and wiggled, turning into an old lady with wings. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Cinderella was like ¡°Aaaah! Magical pixie here to abduct me!¡± And the old lady was like ¡°Noooo Cinderella, I¡¯m your fairy godmother! I¡¯m here to help you get to the ball!¡± And Cinderella was like ¡°One, my name is Ella. Two, fairy godmother? Really? I¡¯m fairly certain the Catholic Church wouldn¡¯t allow a fae to become a godparent. Three, if you¡¯re supposed to be looking after me, where the heck have you been for the past decade?¡± And the fairy was like ¡°I¡¯ve been in the Mediterranean, eating lotuses! It¡¯s a long story, but I¡¯m here now so do you want help or not? Also it¡¯s amazing what a priest will allow if you give him enough gold.¡± And Cinderella was like ¡°¡­K. Help plz.¡± So the fairy started singing, twisting a magical sparkly spell around the teenager, giving her an amazing dress and hairdo and makeup. Then she cast a spell on a pumpkin and a couple mice, and they became a carriage and four horses. Oh yeah, and a couple random lizards became the people who drive carriages and open the door and stuff like that. Anyways, that only left the shoes. The fairy wanted Cinderella to have a memento of the night, so she teleported over to a shoe store, grabbed a pair, and turned them into glass. Then she went back to Cinderella. She explained ¡°Look, magic only lasts a certain amount of time. The pumpkin and mice were extra changed, so they¡¯ll only last until like midnight. The dress and hair will probably hold up till like one in the morning. The shoes weren¡¯t changed all that much, so they¡¯ll last a week and then be normal shoes. So basically make sure you¡¯re home by midnight or else things might end badly. Ok?¡± Cinderella agreed, and off she went to the ball. Meanwhile, the prince was regretting all his life choices. He was greeting one lady after another, all of them obnoxiously trying to flirt with him. He was wondering if death was the better option when Cinderella walked in. The prince immediately felt drawn to her, because magical hotness has to count for something. He thought ¡°Hey! If I dance with this chick all evening, the other girls won¡¯t be able to flirt with me! Perfect!¡± So he took Cinderella¡¯s hand, and they danced for like four hours straight. Cinderella was getting really really tired of dancing, but couldn¡¯t think of any excuse for stopping. Until suddenly the clock started striking midnight, and she remembered the pumpkin thing. She was like ¡°oh no, I¡¯m so sorry, really, but I¡¯ve got to go! Byeeeee!¡± And booked it for the nearest exit. Unfortunately, heels are stupid hard to run in, so she kicked them off to run faster. She picked one of them up, but the castle guards were chasing her at that point so she noped the heck out with only one shoe. The prince thought this was perfect, and picked the shoe up. He declared he would only marry her! No one else. He was totally in love, yep, smitten like a kitten, and would rather live out his days alone than marry some other chick. The king was like ¡°I see nothing odd about this! Quick, find every female in the country who wears a size 6.5 shoe!¡± Cinderella got back home only mildly squash-covered, and went up to her attic to sleep. The next morning, as Cinderella was waxing the marble staircase (it¡¯s not murder if someone slips and falls down a flight of stairs all by themselves), the king¡¯s guards came to the house. They were like ¡°yo, anyone here with a 6.5 shoe size?¡± The step-mother was like ¡°YES both my daughters wear that shoe size!¡± Cinderella was like ¡°I also wear that shoe size!¡± So the guard brought out a 6.5 size shoe, and told the three girls to try it on. If it fit, they¡¯d go to the castle and meet the prince! The older step-sister tried it on, but her feet were like a size 8, so they super didn¡¯t fit. The step-mom said this wasn¡¯t a problem, brb, and took the girl in back. Where she sawed her toes off. When they came back the guard was like ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but DUDE what the heck NO.¡± And didn¡¯t let her try it on again. The younger sister tried the shoe on next. She wore about a 7, so she aaaaalmost fit but not quite. The step-mom again was like brb, and took the girl in back. Where she took a potato peeler and cut off her heel. They wrapped the heel up and came back to try the shoe on. The guard was like ¡°Eyy it fits! Congrats, you get to come with me to the why is blood dripping out of the shoe?¡± When he found out about the heel he denied the younger step-sister entrance to the palace. Cinderella was still there, but she couldn¡¯t try the test shoe on because of all the blood. She was like ¡°Hold on a sec.¡± And ran up to her attic. When she came down, she had the other glass shoe! The guard was like ¡°Wow, a size 6.5 glass shoe! Come with us immediately!¡± And took Cinderella to the castle. Once there, with undeniable proof she was the girl the prince had danced with all night, the king decreed they would get married immediately since that¡¯s what the prince wanted. Presumably Cinderella and the prince had a chat in private about how their relationship would actually play out. She couldn¡¯t complain about going from slave to princess, so I don¡¯t think she was all that upset about it. They got married and lived. Yep. Oh, and the step-mother was executed for permanently disfiguring and crippling her daughters. Jack and the Beanstalk Once upon a time¡­ There was a boy named Jack. He lived with his mother in a tiny village. They were very poor. Unlike Aladdin, this was in a Cinderella place where women couldn¡¯t work or have money. So after Jack''s dad died, they were doomed to slowly starve to death. Jack wanted to work, really he did, but he had this problem that he was super lazy. Whenever he got hired for a job, he¡¯d do like a quarter of it and then wander off for a nap. Eventually people stopped hiring him for jobs. So Jack and his mom resorted to selling everything they owned. Eventually it came time to sell the family cow. Jack¡¯s mom told him to take the cow to market and sell it. So he tied a rope around the cow¡¯s neck and led her down the road leading into town. Lucky for Jack, he didn¡¯t have to go all the way! When he reached a crossroad, a funny looking man was standing there. Jack was like ¡°Hey! You look funny.¡± The man nodded. ¡°Yeah, I get that a lot. Are you planning on selling that cow?¡± Jack said yes. The man was like ¡°Well, today¡¯s your lucky day! I have three magic beans here that I was hoping to trade for a cow! How about it, kid?¡± And Jack was like ¡°Magic beans?! Heck yeah!!¡± And handed over the cow. The funny-looking man handed over the beans, and promptly vanished. Deciding not to question that, Jack wandered home to show his mom the beans. ¡­After he took a nap. By the time he woke up and got home, it was already time for dinner. His mom was annoyed, but knew her son well enough to not have expected him to be home while it was still light out. She asked what he¡¯d sold the cow for. Jack beamed. ¡°Beans!¡± His mom nodded. ¡°A trade? Ok, sure, I can work with that. We can eat some of the beans and plant the rest. A garden is a good investment. Where are the beans?¡± Jack held out the three beans. His mom was like ¡°¡­And the rest of them?¡± Jack was like ¡°This is it! Three beans! But the best part is, they¡¯re magic beans!¡± Jack¡¯s mom, rather than murder him, grabbed those beans and yeeted them out the window. And then, instead of food for dinner, she gave Jack a lecture. Mostly because they didn¡¯t have any food. She sent him to bed and sat down at the table, wondering if she should take the Hansel and Gretel route and abandon him somewhere to be eaten by wolves. During the night, the beans sprouted. Against all odds, it turns out the beans really were magic! They grew and grew, until they reached the sky. When Jack woke up, the beanstalks were so tall they blocked the sun. He went outside and looked up, trying to see where they ended. All he could see was where they faded into the clouds. As he had nothing better to do, he decided to climb to the top. Ok, so, Disney didn¡¯t make a musical princess movie about this story, so my interest in it as a child was near zero. There¡¯s a good chance that I might be mixing what happens next with a different story with a kid named Jack as the main character. There were a lot of those. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. It took Jack almost all day, but as the sun was setting he climbed through the layer of clouds and reached the top of the beanstalk. To his amazement, he found himself at the gate of a giant castle. Now, Jack was rather emaciated from not having had a proper meal in a year or so, so fitting through the bars of the gate was easy for him. He was, compared to the size of everything else, about the size of a housecat. He explored the outside of the castle, finding a garden full of giant vegetables (which he ate), a giant pond, and a giant croquet field. He found the croquet balls, and discovered they were made out of solid gold! So he tied one to his back with a couple giant lettuce leaves, and went back to the beanstalk. Just as he got to the gate, it swung open. Jack dove into a nearby bush as a giant walked in. The giant sniffed, and spoke: ¡°Fe if fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!¡± The giant looked around, but couldn¡¯t find Jack. So he gave up and went into the castle. Jack booked it back to the beanstalk and climbed down as fast as he could. When he got to the bottom, he gave his mom the solid gold croquet ball (and the lettuce), which she sold to the local king. They got enough money for it to live for months! But eventually the money ran low, and Jack still hadn¡¯t found a job. So his mom told him to climb up the beanstalk again and get some balls. It didn¡¯t take Jack quite as long to climb up as it had the first time, since he was no longer dying of starvation. He got to the top and slid through the gate. He wondered what was inside the castle. After all, if the croquet balls were solid gold, what would the cutlery and dinnerware be made of? So he found an open window and climbed through. To his surprise, he found himself in a giant kitchen. He climbed onto the table and found a giant loaf of bread and a giant wheel of cheese, so he sat down and had lunch. As he was finishing up, he spotted a non-giant goose that had a distinct gold color. He wandered over to the goose, and saw it was sitting on a freshly-laid egg of solid gold. So Jack tucked the goose under his arm and climbed back down the beanstalk. The mom quickly figured out that the goose laid solid gold eggs, and started selling them off. It went well for a couple months, until Jack (being a total moron) decided he didn¡¯t want to wait for that day¡¯s egg, and cut the goose open to get it. Yep. So they didn¡¯t have any more golden eggs. Jack¡¯s mom yelled at him for like two straight hours about that, and then sent him back up the beanstalk. This time it was evening when he got up there. His head popped through the clouds just as the giant returned home from work. He snuck through the door after the giant, who apparently had lost his sense of smell. The giant made and ate dinner, while Jack watched. After eating, the giant pulled a harp out of his cupboard and sat it on the table. ¡°Sing,¡± the giant ordered. To Jack¡¯s surprise, the harp started singing. It sang and sang, as the giant sat there and crocheted. TV and radio hadn¡¯t been invented yet, so this was about the most exciting thing Jack had ever seen. He had to have it. Finally the giant finished crocheting his mom a scarf, and locked the harp away before going to bed. Jack waited until he heard snoring, and snuck over to the cupboard. Thankfully for Jack, the harp was a normal, human-sized harp. Unfortunately for him, harps are still pretty huge. I mean, if someone has a harp it¡¯s a major feature of their living room. Kind of like a grand piano. People can¡¯t just pick those things up and waltz off with them. Jack didn¡¯t realize this. He unlocked the cupboard, grabbed the harp, and started dragging it to the door. The harp started screaming. It was like ¡°HELP HELP I¡¯M BEING KIDNAPPED!!!!¡± The giant heard the harp screaming, and ran to the living room, where he saw Jack. ¡°I¡¯m going to grind your bones to make my bread!¡± the giant shouted, and dove for Jack. ¡°Nope!¡± Jack shouted, and booked it back to the beanstalk. He climbed down as fast as he could, but the giant followed him. ¡­ Ok, again, I¡¯m gonna change a slight detail. The giant was like three times bigger than Jack, so he climbed down three times as fast. He quickly caught up to Jack, grabbed him, and took the thief back up to his home. Where he made him into a pie and ate for breakfast. Then he went out onto the clouds, grabbed the beanstalk, and ripped it out by the roots. He got enough beans to eat for like a month. Jack¡¯s mom cut her finger washing dishes and, this being the dark ages, died of sepsis a week later. Cycle 37 (1) Dear Diary, It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve written a diary entry. I need to fill you in with everything that¡¯s happened! First off, Cycle 37 just started. ¡­Yeah, it¡¯s been a while. I blame myself for having kinda lost this book under my mattress. I mean, I checked under the bed! How the heck did it get under the mattress? So yeah, a lot of time has passed. The most important thing for me is, I got access to fish and rice, along with pre-made sushi and all the stuff Via has. I also got everything for a salad bar, so a couple extra vegetables and things. I got bacon bits, which took the raptors from accepting our existence to being our best friends. Oh, I also got bagels and cream cheese, so I make a kind of blackberry cream cheese ball and roll it in bacon bits, and holy crap do they love those things. But the balls are very not healthy, so those are only for dessert. Oh, turns out the wolves love fish, so I¡¯ve been varying their diet more than I did before. I mean, they were getting slightly bored with meatballs every day (who wouldn¡¯t), so now I alternate meatballs and trout, with bacon-wrapped chicken every now and again as a treat. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Oh! This is important: the ants on floor 98 were swapped with the mosquitoes from the swamp floor! Aya almost had a mental breakdown when she found out, and it took us like a week to make friends with the ex-mosquitoes. They¡¯re still not really our friends, but they allow us to pass through whenever we want to go sled racing on the yeti¡¯s floor. Meanwhile, the ex-ants still stick with us and help us out whenever we go up there. Oh yeah, the yetis! They¡¯re still weird. But! One of them, Cynoe, really likes dogs. He¡¯s been helping us with our sled races, and I¡¯m 90% sure he has a crush on Mika. Any time we go down to their floor he basically runs over and searches her out. He doesn¡¯t have a key, so he can¡¯t leave the floor to hang out with us, but I think Kimi might give him one soon. Keys! How could I forget! So, apparently the players kept doing stupid stuff and losing their keys. So the Admin put keys in Kimi¡¯s shop on cycle 35. We all have keys now, and all the kobolds can get a key if they want one. Cycle 35 was wild, with everyone just wandering everywhere through the dungeon. I¡¯m pretty sure the Admin nearly had a mental breakdown, but it ended ok. Wow it feels good to write again. I mean, I wrote all the fairy tales, but that isn¡¯t the same as writing a journal. Writing in a diary is just relaxing. Like, I can turn my brain off and just put one word after another and it¡¯s fine. There doesn¡¯t have to be a plot, and nothing has to make sense. I don¡¯t have to worry about dialogue tags and stuff. Journals are easy. But I am tired, so I¡¯ll save the rest of the news for tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (2) Dear Diary, I thought about giving you a name before and decided not to, right? So I could say something like ¡°Dear Susan¡± instead of just ¡°Diary¡± and pretend like I was writing to someone. Like a pen pal! But then I¡¯d be sad because no pen pal would ever write me back. Best if I just keep saying diary. Unless I decided to switch it up and say ¡°Dairy¡±. I might have already done that by accident¡­ Oh well. Back to news! The most important thing, of course, is the marble races. Pretty sure there were five cycles I missed writing about. Well, I won gold in Cycle 33 and bronze in Cycle 36, but didn¡¯t get anything in the other cycles. Kimi keeps a list of everyone¡¯s ranking each cycle, but I don¡¯t think it¡¯s super important. Does that make me narcissistic? That if I don¡¯t win I don¡¯t care? Maybe a little. I hope not. Well, Via wins silver a lot. Like, not just a podium spot, but she ends up in silver specifically. Lilly and Aya think it¡¯s because she was assigned as the silver catgirl, so the dungeon tries to keep her as silver as possible. I don¡¯t know, I think it might be coincidence. But if it isn¡¯t, I¡¯m glad there aren¡¯t any gold catgirls because that would just doom the rest of us to failure. But gold magic is the Admin¡¯s color, and he¡¯d never join a race. So we¡¯re good. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Oh, right, the Admin! He sent us a message! We were fighting our way up through the dungeon, doing what we do, and when we got to Floor 81 he sent us a message saying please don¡¯t go any further because if we go above 80 we might run into the players and that would screw up a whole bunch of things for him so please don¡¯t. It was a very polite message. And I mean, we don¡¯t want to specifically make things difficult for him (ok Mika and Kimi might a little bit) so we just peeked into Floor 80 but didn¡¯t go all the way in. It¡¯s another lava floor. Lilly thought it was hilarious that the Admin wrote us a polite letter. She said ¡°he¡¯s learned¡±, which¡­ Yeah. If he¡¯d asked politely for us to not do stuff before, we wouldn¡¯t have. But he didn¡¯t, and it started a whole thing of us messing things up and him fixing it, and us messing it up harder, and him freaking out more. Oh yeah, he told us to stop putting traps in snowmen. It was hilarious, but apparently since players aren¡¯t supposed to die on this floor it messes something up when they do. One or two was fine, like when we took the keys or that time the players tried to kill us all, but the traps killed enough people that some stat or other was being affected on his end. He couldn¡¯t really take away our traps, since Mika made some and Kimi sells the rest in her shop, so he just sent us a message saying ¡°UGHHHH PLEASE STAAAHP¡±. ¡­I¡¯m paraphrasing, but not as much as you¡¯d think. Anyways, I think that¡¯s all the news, so tomorrow I¡¯ll get back to writing about what¡¯s happening every day! Woo! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (3) Dear Diary, Kimi and Y got permission to make a walkway maze on our floor today! They¡¯ve been petitioning for one for a while, and the Admin at first was like ¡°heck no¡± but since we know we can reason with him now they¡¯ve been adjusting their plans and designs, and he finally agreed. He said that next cycle our floor will change to a jungle floor, and the ceiling will be covered in clouds, so they can put stuff up there then without any of the players noticing. So for now they have one cycle to prepare all the pieces and make the design perfect. Mika and a bunch of the kobolds are helping to make stuff. It¡¯ll mostly just be reinforced chicken wire netting for the floor, with steel bars holding it up. Since the clouds will make it impossible to see very far, that makes it so they don¡¯t have to make walls. Which saves everyone a ton of work. Via suggested they upgrade the wire to be diamond, since then it would never break or bend, but Mika said she wasn¡¯t sure that was possible on a non-weapon. She¡¯s going to try, but the wire has to be in place before she can change it. There¡¯s a reason for that, but I kinda didn¡¯t pay attention to the answer. I¡¯ll admit that at that point in the discussion I was getting bored. Oh! I got chips this cycle! Things that totally aren¡¯t Doritos and totally aren¡¯t Cheetos and totally aren¡¯t Lays. Gin was super excited about the potato chips, and told me and Nat that she has a couple recipes that use them. I¡¯ve had Doritos in a kind of taco salad thing, so I¡¯m going to try and make that. And since that only leaves the cheese puffs, Nat has taken it upon herself to figure out a real recipe that incorporates them. And not just a thing that already exists but with cheese puffs, but a recipe that is legit made better by their addition. Like my taco salad thing; it¡¯s fine without the Doritos, but if you add them it gives the salad a distinct crunch and extra salt and flavor that makes it amazing. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Actually, I should make that salad tomorrow for lunch. It¡¯s pretty easy, so it¡¯ll free up time for us to experiment. Wait, when did I stop writing? Was Gin a part of the cooking team yet? Let me check¡­ She wasn¡¯t! I mentioned her, but she was still a solo cook! That¡¯s changed! It took a cycle or two, but Nat and I convinced her to join us full time. And Mar, she was a judge for the cooking competition, joins us from time to time. Gin knows how to cook and knows a lot of good recipes. Mar doesn¡¯t really know any recipes, but she knows how to make the recipes we have better. And she¡¯s good at chopping and mixing and stuff. Mar has a lot of techniques that make her a really good help in the kitchen, even if she never wants to take control and become master chef for the day. I¡¯ll have to talk more about Gin and Mar, but another time. For now I need sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (4) Dear Diary, So, since we all have keys and can¡¯t explore any more, we don¡¯t really do the whole ¡°one week with the kobolds and one week exploring¡± thing. Everyone wanders back and forth as much as we want until the air elementals tell us a player¡¯s on their floor, and then scramble back to our floors. It¡¯s fun. Lewis the dragon still doesn¡¯t really like it when his kobolds leave their floor, but since the Admin is ok with it he kinda has to be ok too. Oh, Mika and Aya asked the Admin if they could change colors around, but he said no. I guess there¡¯s a reason we¡¯re all color-coded. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s a reason we¡¯re the colors we are specifically, but we have to stick with the colors we got. Via has decided to try making the raptors our pets. The raptors like me and her best, me mostly because I have food and her because she¡¯s obsessed with dinosaurs, so she¡¯s asked me to help. Well, she doesn¡¯t really want to make them pets like the wolves are our pets. She wants them to be more like horses. Via¡¯s goal in life is to ride a raptor into battle. While I understand how epic that would be, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s going to happen. But, I¡¯m going to help her anyway. She¡¯s made a muzzle type thing, and tried to put it on them today. She started with the smallest one, who she named Echo. Echo wasn¡¯t sure what he was supposed to do with the weirdly knotted rope, and spent two minutes trying to bite it. Then the leader, Alpha, saw Echo doing something interesting and butted in. Alpha didn¡¯t figure out what it was either, and absolutely hated letting it touch him. By that time we had all their attention. The only one who kinda figured out what we were trying to do was Charlie. Charlie usually doesn¡¯t care what we do when the food is gone, so that surprised me. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. So yeah, it¡¯s going to take her a while to get them used to the muzzle, and then we¡¯ll have to see if they freak out about a saddle. I think one or two of the kobolds know about horses, so they could probably help design a saddle for a raptor. Maybe. But nothing will make me prefer the raptors to the dire wolves. Especially Siri, who is and always will be best girl. The kobolds tried to keep Wolfie McWolfpants last cycle when the players came through. Just to see what would happen. The Admin found out and told Lewis to send him back. Everyone was very sad, but there isn¡¯t a whole lot they could do about it. So now we know that the wolves have to do their job, like we do. No one gets a vacation, even for one cycle. Oh well. At least we get to play with the wolves while the players aren¡¯t around. That¡¯s all that really matters. Oh, speaking of the wolves, I should really make a big batch of meatballs¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (5) Dear Diary, Lilly and Staab decided to take a vacation. ¡­I know I ended last night¡¯s entry saying no one gets a vacation, but that¡¯s different. That¡¯s a vacation from the players, not from the rest of us. Staab and Lilly decided to just move up to Floor 86 for a week. We asked if they wanted our help to clear out all the mimics, but they said they could handle it. And Lilly didn¡¯t respawn here, so I guess they managed it. I mean, the mimics weren¡¯t exactly the most difficult of enemies to beat. They just sat there until you got into agro range and then try to bite. I almost wonder if I could solo that floor. Actually¡­ I wonder how many floors I could beat by myself. I¡¯m pretty sure the slime maze wouldn¡¯t be a problem for me, now that Y has perfected the mayo ranch balls. The wolves and raptors don¡¯t count, since they don¡¯t attack me any more. The yetis¡­ I don¡¯t think they would fight against me alone. It¡¯s not something they¡¯re likely to vote for. I couldn¡¯t beat the air elementals, but I might be able to successfully fight against the ghosts on Staab¡¯s floor. Other than that we¡¯ve kinda been beating all the floors as a team, and I don¡¯t think I could do all the jobs alone. Well, with training I could. But not as I am now. I bet Aya could get through most of the floors by herself. She¡¯s a couple levels above the rest of us, since she helped the ants beat the giant worm thing while we were goofing off. Plus her magic is better suited to solo players than group players. Lilly says the different colors focus on different things, so the players get options on what kind of player they want to be. We didn¡¯t get to choose, but I think I would have gone with green anyway. I like being helpful, and I don¡¯t like hurting people. Green is the perfect magic for that. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. I¡¯ve kinda been thinking about starting a garden when the cycle changes and we become a jungle floor. Plants don¡¯t really grow in ice and stuff, but they sure grow in jungles. I mean, that¡¯s how jungles become jungles. Usually I¡¯m kinda bad with plants, I don¡¯t understand how to make them all happy and stuff. I only know how to make them taste good. But in an environment where plants grow like crazy I might not instantly kill a tomato vine. Plus green magic has a couple plant spells, so I might be able to magic the plants to life. Magic is pretty neat. That only leaves the question of what plants to grow. I don¡¯t have any actual seeds, just the seeds that come in food. Like jalape?o seeds. It might take some experimenting and a lot of fiddling around to get a jalape?o plant to grow, but I think given enough time I should be able to do it. If I don¡¯t manage to grow anything I won¡¯t be all that sad about it, honestly. This is just something new to try. I mean, I tried drawing and music and sculpting, and I guess I¡¯m just not all that artistic. I¡¯m good at food, and that¡¯s about it. But who knows, I might be ok at plants if I try hard enough. But that won¡¯t be for another week or so yet. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (6) Dear Diary, My marbles won gold in the marble race today! Team Momo is doing a great job this cycle. We¡¯re currently in the championship silver spot, but Aya who is in gold only came in fourth for today¡¯s race. So she¡¯s only like one point above me. If I beat her tomorrow at all, we¡¯re going to swap places and I¡¯ll be in gold. I haven¡¯t talked about marble races this cycle, have I? I mentioned them earlier, for the cycles that passed when I wasn¡¯t writing diary entries, but not about this cycle. Well, since we¡¯re just wandering up and down and around through the dungeon all the time now, we don¡¯t spend a whole week doing nothing but marble races. Now we spend evenings marble racing. It means we don¡¯t have a marble race every day, since it takes time to set up the tracks, but that¡¯s ok. We do all our own stuff all day, then after dinner us catgirls (and Staab and Y) are always behind Mika¡¯s shop, racing marbles. Oh yeah, we won¡¯t have snow next cycle. That means we¡¯ll have to figure out a new way of making racing tracks. I wonder how hard tracks are to make out of mud. Maybe we could make some out of leaves or something. Maybe bamboo? Bamboo might work, it¡¯s pretty smooth, right? I¡¯ll admit I don¡¯t know a whole lot about bamboo. Then again, our jungle might not have bamboo at all! There are thousands if not millions of different plant types in the Amazon jungle, and hardly any of those plant types are bamboo. We might get a jungle that¡¯s solid orchids, that¡¯d be cool. Or all air plants. I¡¯m not entirely sure how that would work, but it¡¯s magic. Things don¡¯t have to make sense to work. I mean, it doesn¡¯t make sense that it¡¯s snowing right now but in a couple weeks I¡¯ll be in a jungle. Without moving. I guess that would make sense if I went somewhere in an airplane or whatever, but that¡¯s not happening. The diner itself, currently covered in snow, will soon be covered in tropical plants. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Sometimes I feel like I¡¯m trying to explain something, but the more I explain the more confusing everything gets. I need to learn when to stop talking and start over or something. Oh well. Usually people know what I¡¯m trying to say. I¡¯m not smart and technical like Kimi and Lilly, who can start talking about complicated math or psychology or science or something, and no one around has a clue what they¡¯re talking about. When I talk people know what I¡¯m talking about, and even if I get totally messed up they can figure it out. Today Kimi and Y were arguing about cloud layers and how that¡¯ll affect the metal they¡¯re making the walkway out of, and I was totally lost. Mika understood kinda, but she told me they were arguing for fun (they do that), and the technical terms they used were just to make themselves sound smart. She said metal doesn¡¯t care if the water around it comes from a stratus cloud or a cumulonimbus cloud. And that it only matters how much salt is in the water, but that¡¯ll be the same regardless of what type of cloud it is. Which, at that point I was lost again. Maybe someday I¡¯ll understand. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 37 (7) Dear Diary, It¡¯s been a couple days since last time I wrote. The players got here today. They¡¯re getting pretty fast, I guess they know how to do everything. I mean, they¡¯ve gone through all the floors thirty-seven times, they should know how to do everything. Even if the floors do change slightly from time to time. But that would just give them variety. After all, variety is the spice of life. I think if I were a player, I¡¯d take a cycle just relaxing on a nice floor once in a while. Maybe there¡¯s a beach floor where I could just spend the whole cycle sitting on the beach. Make friends with the ¡°monsters¡± on that floor. Actually, Via used to be a siren, and sirens are basically mermaids, right? So if there were mermaids there must be water and beaches on some floors. Well, the kraken and sharks are a water floor. But the beach there isn¡¯t a good beach for sitting on. It¡¯s kinda dark and boring. Not like night dark (except at night, duh), but like storm dark. Cloudy. Plus if you sat on the beach there long enough I¡¯m pretty sure the kraken would send out a tentacle and grab you. ¡­I kinda want to try that now. Maybe if I made a picnic I could make friends with the kraken! The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. On second thought, that¡¯s a really dumb idea and I shouldn¡¯t try it. Anyways, I don¡¯t think I¡¯d make a very good player. I¡¯m not a fighter. I think players were chosen based on how good they used to be at video games, and I never really played video games. Which, if there¡¯s a reason for them to run through the dungeon time after time, it would make sense to send people who were already super used to how places like this work. I mean, as far as I know there isn¡¯t a video game that you have to play a hundred times to win, but there might be. I wouldn¡¯t know. I never played video games. I¡¯ve been thinking about putting fingernail paint on my claws. Aya did it, and it looks super cute. She got an almost-gold color with sparkles, and it looks neat. I¡¯d have to get green, which is meh, but it¡¯s still something different. I don¡¯t have fingernails like humans do, just claws that retract, so I wouldn¡¯t see it all the time. Kobolds have claws that don¡¯t retract. It took me a while to figure out how to take care of them when I first became a catgirl. I mean, who knew that cat claws kinda peel, and if you don¡¯t pull off the peelings the ends get all fuzzy. I guess the fingernail paint would only last like two days, since claws peel all the time. Or should the word be shed? I don¡¯t know. Maybe I should make some kind of clay caps for my claws, and paint them. But that would be dumb, because like I said they¡¯re usually retracted unless I actually need a claw. And if I needed a claw, it would be annoying to take the cap off. I guess I¡¯ll leave my claws as they are. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (1) Dear Diary, The players get through the last couple floors fast now. The slime maze doesn¡¯t ever change, so they know which way to go, and at the end they know what button to push. Anyways, it¡¯s a new cycle! Woo! I didn¡¯t get any new ingredients! Boooo. Our floor was changed to be a jungle floor, like the Admin said was going to happen. It¡¯s super pretty here now! My diner is made out of bamboo, with a kinda tiki theme. All the buildings are raised up on stilts like a foot, and underneath them is quicksand. Lilly and Aya started a bet on how long it would be before a player got stuck under there and died. Aya says about two hours after the first player arrives. Lilly says six hours (giving time for other players to arrive). Via has the longest bet, saying no one will die under one of the buildings until next cycle. My bet is twelve hours after the first player arrives, Mika thinks a full day, and Kimi thinks fourteen hours. My building is solid bamboo, including the tables and plumbing. There¡¯s a lot you can do with bamboo, apparently. Mika¡¯s shop just has the walls made out of bamboo, since she has to work with metal and needs things to be super hot. Bamboo is very flammable, so yeah, she¡¯s still got metal and stone in her building. Via¡¯s inn is mostly bamboo, but I think the walls have something between them to dampen sound. Sound dampening is important in an inn. The other shops are pure bamboo, like mine. Stolen story; please report. Oh! I forgot to say! Last cycle, my team won gold in the marble championship! They did a great job, and now sit on a shelf with all my winning teams. Aya and I were enemies for a couple days, since she won silver, but that was ok. I¡¯m going to choose my team for this cycle tomorrow. Anyways, now that that¡¯s out of the way¡­ Kimi and Y are already setting up their walkway thing. The ceiling is covered in clouds, and the walkway is metal, so water will condense on it and make it seem like it¡¯s kinda always raining here. They hadn¡¯t realized that having metal up there would make water condense, and they¡¯re both kinda embarrassed about it. I mean, they pretend to know all about science and stuff, and neither of them thought of condensation. They tried pretending they knew, but kinda over-compensated. It was sad. The walkway looks super cool, though. Mika made spike step things that she shoved into a really big tree, to make a staircase. It¡¯s kinda subtle, and when vines start growing it¡¯ll be even harder to see, so I¡¯m sure the players will think it¡¯s a secret level or something. Everyone involved is really proud of it. Via says it looks kinda like the walkway in the third Jurassic Park movie, and wants to bring one of the not-pterodactyls from the raptor floor over to live up there and reenact the movie or something. We all told her no. Well, we all convinced her the Admin would probably not like it if a pterodactyl got onto our floor and started eating players. Via is just obsessed with dinosaurs. We might need to talk to her about that one of these days. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (2) Dear Diary, So, last cycle Via tried to get the dracoraptors to accept a kinda bridle thing. They mostly figured it out, and now allow her to put the cord around their muzzles. Snouts? Noses. Whatever. This cycle she¡¯s determined to make a saddle and get it on one of them. She talked to a couple kobolds who know how to work with leather and others who know horses, and she¡¯s working on making a saddle. At first Via tried to make it on the raptor¡¯s floor, since that would mean they¡¯d get to see it a lot and wouldn¡¯t freak out when she pulls it out. But she needed help to make the saddle, and the kobolds absolutely refuse to go up there. Which is fair. I mean, the raptors accept us because we bring them food and are around basically all the time. But they still see everyone who isn¡¯t a catgirl as an enemy. They even attacked Staab when it was just us and him. Oh, I didn¡¯t write yesterday. Meaning I didn¡¯t write about the marbles! I ran all my marbles through the prelim track, and got a good team. At least I think it¡¯s a good team. I hope so. When the race started with all like three hundred or however many marbles I have, five marbles immediately pulled out ahead and stayed there the whole race. Then in the next race (with just the top ten), four of those five made up a front pack, while the other six clumped together behind them. I know it was them because I marked them after the first race. We only take the top three into the official races, so the fourth marble will be stuck out. I left the mark on him, and I wonder if next cycle he¡¯ll get in. If he does, that would make me feel good. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Maybe I should just set him aside as automatically qualifying for next cycle¡¯s races. I mean, staying ahead of all the other marbles for two whole races takes effort, and in the real races coming in fourth isn¡¯t all that bad. He did a good job. Yeah, I¡¯ll set him aside and use him next cycle. The kobolds want to have another cooking competition this cycle. We did a pasta competition last time, so this time we¡¯re going to do a sandwich competiton. We¡¯ll have the same three judges as last time, since they did a good job. A lot more people are entering, since they don¡¯t have to make the bread themselves. I mean, I will. Because I can. But bread is admittedly kinda hard to make, and if we forced everyone to make bread there would only be like five contestants. The ruling is we have to either show up with bread or accept the pre-made bread. The contest is in four days, so I¡¯ll make the bread in three days. I want it to be as fresh as possible without having to stress about messing it up. I might mess it up anyways, in which case I¡¯ll just use the pre-made stuff. No worries. Although I should really focus on what type of sandwich I want to make¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (3) Dear Diary, The walkway is done! They finished it this morning, and invited all the kobolds and everyone to come check it out. Nat and I stayed at the diner and cooked for everyone. We had a party, because it¡¯s been a week since the last party and the kobolds need one like every three days. Anyways, the walkway is epic! It isn¡¯t really a full maze, just a winding path with a couple dead ends and random splits. So if you¡¯ve never been up there it feels like a maze. It has thin, light guardrails that are mostly there so people don¡¯t walk off the edge. If someone tripped or leaned on the rail too hard they¡¯d totally fall off. It¡¯s the thought that counts, I guess. The clouds up there really make it creepy looking. If we knew when Halloween was it¡¯d be the best place for a Halloween party. Although if we did that Via would insist on getting some dinosaurs up there. Which, ok, might be cool. Especially since the raptors are black, so all you¡¯d see would be this dark shape stalking you through the mist, and you wouldn¡¯t be able to figure out what it was until it was half a foot away. At which point you¡¯d already be dead. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Some of the kobolds hadn¡¯t ever been up here before, and a bunch hadn¡¯t been here this cycle, so it was all new to them. It was pretty cool. I mean, we¡¯ve gotten used to their floor, and know where everything is and how it all works. Now it was our time to show off where we live and how it all works. Mika¡¯s shop was a huge success, and Via might start getting kobold customers. Kimi¡¯s shop was open, but she wasn¡¯t there, so mostly people just found out all of what she sells. Lilly and Aya don¡¯t really have shops with stuff in them, so they didn¡¯t bother staying in their shops. My diner was mostly exciting because I have a menu. Nat and Gin don¡¯t have a menu, they just hand out whatever they feel like cooking, so having options on what to eat was totally mind-blowing. Aya asked about making a marble track starting at the walkway going down. The first couple of cycles we really had a problem with getting the marble race to last longer than like three seconds, and a walkway up by the ceiling would have solved all our problems. Lilly wonders what would happen if we made part of the track out of cloth, since we don¡¯t have to worry about height. And I kinda wonder how complete drops would affect the race. Although they do explode if they¡¯re dropped far enough, so it¡¯d have to be a short drop. I wonder exactly how far the drop can be. That seems like something Kimi and Y would love to experiment with. They¡¯ll probably make a specific winch thing with marks every centimeter, and dedicate a whole notebook to registering measurements. They do stuff like that. I¡¯ll go ask if they want to check. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (4) Dear Diary, The cooking competition is tomorrow! I made a bread that¡¯s¡­ well, ok, it¡¯s aged pizza dough, but it kinda sorta tastes like sourdough. If you¡¯ve never had real sourdough. The dough is light and fluffy and has a good flavor. Oh, the judges decided that they weren¡¯t accepting sides, only sandwiches, and hamburgers weren¡¯t going to be allowed. I guess too many people said they were going to make burgers and fries. I¡¯m going to make a reuben sandwich. I¡¯m pretty sure no one else is going to make one, since we don¡¯t have access to corned beef or Swiss cheese. Or sourcrout. Sowerkrout. ¡­Souerkrout¡­e? Ok, how the heck do you spell that word? Be right back, Staab knows. ¡­ Sauerkraut! Wow that¡¯s a weirdly spelled word. I need to just learn German. ¡­Why was I talking about sauerkraut? Oh, right! The sandwich! Ok so, since we don¡¯t have three of the main ingredients I¡¯m pretty sure no one else will try making one. If they do, it¡¯ll be hilarious. Anyways, Swiss cheese can¡¯t be helped. We have mozzarella and cheddar (and bleu cheese in a dressing), so I¡¯m going to just use mozzarella. But! I dried slices of it out by the lava on Staab¡¯s floor today, and tonight I¡¯m soaking them in vinegar. So hopefully by the time of the competition it won¡¯t be recognizable as mozzarella. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Corned beef is different though. Mar says corned beef is beef chopped into pieces the size of corn kernels, then preserved using brine and spices. I don¡¯t know what spices, so I just use rosemary and basil. And hot pepper flakes. Can¡¯t go too wrong with that combination. Oh, brine is just salty water. It¡¯s not salt water, like in the ocean, but salty water. There¡¯s a difference. So I¡¯ve been soaking the beef kernels in spiced brine for two days. Then tomorrow I¡¯m going to press it together super hard and get all the liquid out, then slice that into sandwich slices. Lilly says she has a spell that can compress things, and a spell that can get water out of non-living things, so hopefully if I cast them on the beef at the same time it¡¯ll be perfect. I should probably check that spell combo before I use it on all my meat¡­ But there isn¡¯t really anything I can use it on. I mean, fruit would turn out weird, and nothing else really has liquid in it. Oh well, let¡¯s just hope for the best. Not much else I can do. If it goes horribly wrong I¡¯ll just use ham. Ham is close enough, given the other ingredients are also ¡°close enough¡±. In other news, Via has lent Kimi and Y a couple sheets, and they¡¯re busy trying to find the perfect angle and tension to make a good marble track. So far only three marbles have exploded, and they swear the one that landed on my roof was an accident. Since Kimi dropped it, it was red. Meaning it exploded into fire. Bamboo is very flammable. I don¡¯t have most of a roof any more. Hopefully that will be fixed when the cycle restarts. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (5) Four mosquitoes, tied to a key, crawled along gold-covered walls. A hurricane made of wyverns raged in the middle of the cavern, wearing down a group of players. In the shadows, a giant gold dragon watched the hurricane. The mosquitoes walked silently, slowly, making their way to the entrance. Suddenly the eyes of the dragon focused on them. She stood, moving smoothly over to the diminutive swarm. They slowed as she stopped in front of them, lowering her giant head to see them better. ¡°What are you doing?¡± the dragon asked, her voice as smooth and bright as gold. The mosquitoes¡­ didn¡¯t answer. They couldn¡¯t. They lowered the key to the ground and landed on top of it, watching her. With a single claw, the dragon lifted their key. She looked it over, everything else forgotten. Slowly she smiled, casting a spell. A replica of the key appeared in her paw. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, sliding the new key under a pile of gold. The mosquitoes took flight, once more making their way to the entrance. In the middle of the room, the first player died. The wyverns seemed to be winning. The dragon watched the mosquitoes, clearly wondering what they were doing. If they¡¯d been given the chance, they would have answered with two words: Spreading anarchy. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. *** Dear Diary, Well, I was right! No one else tried to make a reuben sandwich, and I won second place. One person tried making a hamburger, and they were disqualified. There were a couple ham sandwiches, none of which won. Gin made a tuna melt, with potato chips in it, and she won third place. It smelled amazing; I probably would have let her win again. But Nat made a vegetarian thing with caramelized mushrooms and a bunch of other things that just¡­ It looked amazing. No one else tried to go vegetarian, and I think that¡¯s part of what let her win. I mean, mine was basically 90% salt and vinegar, and the tuna melt was 90% cheese and mayonnaise, so after that something that¡¯s good while being even slightly healthy was probably very impressive. Not that the ants care about health. But I¡¯m sure a couple of them at least died of high blood pressure after all our food. And poor Mar is never going to judge again. Lewis will probably judge, but just because it¡¯s a good way for him to be included. I think he¡¯s so big he doesn¡¯t feel included in a lot of things. Not because we don¡¯t want to include him, but because he¡¯s a giant dragon. He just doesn¡¯t fit. It makes me glad that me, Nat and Gin won again. Not because we¡¯re the cooking people and we¡¯re the best automatically, but because¡­ I don¡¯t know. It validates that we¡¯re the ones who do most of the cooking around here. Gin and especially Nat always cook for the kobolds, and I¡¯m the chef on the catgirl floor. Before we were doing it because it was fun for us. If someone didn¡¯t like our cooking and said we were terrible (that only happened once but still) a part of me wondered if that person was right. But now I know that person was wrong. Like, we¡¯re legitimately the best at cooking around here. We have trophies to prove it. We aren¡¯t forcing people to eat our cooking and then insisting they like it. We have now earned our positions. I think. Anyways the competition was super fun but super stressful. I think next time I might not enter, and just enjoy watching everyone else cook. Because sometimes relaxing is very important. Speaking of which, I¡¯m going to relax and enjoy my trophy now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (6) Dear Diary, Well, I haven¡¯t talked about the marble races a whole lot this cycle because¡­ I¡¯m doing really badly. I guess my marbles spent all their luck or energy or whatever on the prelims and had nothing left for the real races. I¡¯m still going to use the marble I set aside next time, hopefully he¡¯ll be ready for some real races by then. It just stinks cuz I was super excited about the races this cycle and they¡¯ve been a total letdown for me. Just goes to show, marbles aren¡¯t people and can¡¯t be relied on for consistency. They¡¯re just little blobs of glass with no thoughts or emotions. I mean, I¡¯m still going to treat them like they have thoughts and emotions, but I know they don¡¯t. Via¡¯s raptor saddle thing is done, and she¡¯s been trying to get the raptors to wear it. It hasn¡¯t been working. Watching her try has been super fun, though. They know she wants them to wear it, so they¡¯ll stand still and let her get close. Alpha and Charlie let her put it on their backs, but as soon as she lets go to buckle the straps they take off. It¡¯s a game for them at this point. See how close Via can get to strapping the saddle on before running away. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. It¡¯s frustrating to Via, but I think she has fun, too. I tried a couple times, and they did the same thing. Maybe by the end of next cycle they¡¯ll get bored and see why she wants to put that weird thing on their backs. Oh! So, the yeti who has a crush on Mika, Cynoe, finally told her he has a crush on her. It¡­ didn¡¯t go well. For him. At all. She kinda pushed him off a cliff. Then when he respawned the yetis told him he was dumb for even trying, and something racist about interspecies relationships, and he was temporarily banned from their clan. Or cult. Or whatever they call themselves. I feel sorry for him. He¡¯s staying at Via¡¯s inn now, just until the players get here. It isn¡¯t his fault Mika didn¡¯t catch on that he was totally falling in love with her, and she¡¯s one of the more violent catgirls so he really should have expected to be murdered in some way if it went wrong. I should take him a cake to cheer him up. Should I take him a normal cake or an ice cream cake? It¡¯s pretty warm here now, and he is a yeti, so he might like something cool. But then he might think I made ice cream because he¡¯s a yeti and I presume he likes ice. Hmm. I know! I¡¯ll just make two cakes! Plus, that way if he doesn¡¯t like chocolate, he¡¯ll have another option. And then I can ask what kind of cake he likes, in case I ever have to make him a cake again. I should ask about all the yetis. Even though they¡¯re weird and I don¡¯t want to make them cakes. Anyways. I have cakes to make! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 38 (7) Dear Diary, The players got here today! They spent an hour in my diner before heading off, but before leaving one decided to try climbing under Kimi¡¯s shop to see if anything interesting was there. He died in the quicksand. Aya won the bet. The players can be pretty stupid sometimes. Anyways, after that guy respawned and the group left, another couple of groups arrived. They found the walkway! They climbed up it and seemed pretty excited to have found it. One lady was convinced there should be a treasure chest or something up there. She wanted to spend a couple hours mapping the walkway out (they talked about it in my diner), but the rest of her group said no. They said they were too close to the end to waste time. I told Kimi and Mika about what she¡¯d said, and they¡¯re going to make a treasure chest to put up there. Then all they have to do is decide what to put in the chest. I think they¡¯re leaning towards making it a lethal trap, but Aya suggested putting something so useless it¡¯s annoying in there, and I like that idea. Aya said origami frogs would be funny, but I want to go further. So my idea is to draw smiley faces on a bunch of leaves and fill the treasure chest with them. Well, smiley faces and stars and messages like ¡°you did it!¡± and ¡°good job!¡± and stuff like that. I¡¯m pretty sure Via likes my idea. Lilly is kinda on Mika and Kimi¡¯s side. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. So, of course, there¡¯s only one way to settle this. Marble racing. The race will be held as soon as the cycle changes. It¡¯ll be a special race, with one marble each, so I¡¯m going to use the marble I set aside. Mika wants to end it with a jump, meaning the marbles will all explode at the end. It¡¯ll be a shame to lose such a promising marble, but it¡¯s for a good cause. In other news, I put Gin¡¯s prize-winning tuna melt on my menu, and it¡¯s been a huge hit. I didn¡¯t put my reuben sandwich on the menu, because it takes too long to set up the ingredients, but I pretty much have all the tuna melt ingredients available. I only have the tuna out of sushi, but taking sushi apart just gives me more rice. Which means I can make stuff with rice for myself and the girls without worrying about waste. I know it¡¯s silly to worry about wasting ingredients, but a part of me will always worry. I guess some habits never die. I know Nat worries about wasting food, even though we give all our leftovers and scraps to the ants. I¡¯m not sure Gin cares, but then I don¡¯t think she ever really cared. More players just showed up! Time to cook! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (1) The Admin rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing. The mosquitoes had traveled all the way up to Floor 47, scattering keys and shuffling creatures around. The cycle reset put everything back where it ought to be, but it hadn¡¯t removed the keys. And now, not half an hour after the reset, the mosquitoes were already on their way back up through the dungeon. If he didn¡¯t figure out how to stop them, at least for one more cycle, they might seriously screw things up. They were becoming more of a nuisance than the catgirls¡­ He frowned, rolling his chair to a different screen. After scrolling through archives for a bit, he found what he was looking for. The yellow catgirl had spent a lot of time with the mosquitoes when they were ants. A lot of time. She was, at the very least, friends with them. The Admin pushed his chair to a different screen. He pulled up a message box, setting the recipient as¡­ Aya. He started typing, asking for her help. *** Dear Diary, Guess what catgirl has access to carbonated drinks now! That¡¯s right, me. The diner got a soda machine!!! Root beer is one of those sodas, so root beer floats have been the dessert of the day. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Is it dessert or desert? I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s the one with two S¡¯s. If I¡¯m wrong, no one will ever know. It kinda sucks that I can¡¯t take the soda machine with me to the kobold¡¯s floor, but oh well. At least I can put the soda into glass bottles and take those down. Gin says she knows a couple recipes that involve soda. At this point it shouldn¡¯t have surprised me, since all of her recipes are stupidly unhealthy and usually involve junk food, but it still surprised me. Tomorrow she¡¯s going to make something with the generic lemon-lime soda that totally isn¡¯t Sprite (it¡¯s totally Sprite). I¡¯m pretty interested to see what she comes up with, really. I kinda wonder if Gin and her whole family had diabetes before she came here. Given what she cooks, it wouldn¡¯t surprise me. But then, maybe she only cooks like this now because she knows we can¡¯t die of heart attacks, so we can eat literally any amount of unhealthy and delicious crap and be fine. I¡¯ll have to ask her about that one of these days¡­ Oh! We had the special marble race! My marble won!!! I knew he was going to be a good marble, and his sacrifice will forever be remembered. After the race we went around and picked up a bunch of leaves off the ground, and put them on a table in my diner. Over the next week, whenever we have time, we¡¯ll draw smiley faces and stars on them. And write congratulatory messages on some. Mika still has to build the treasure chest, but she says it shouldn¡¯t take her too long. The kobolds want another music competition this cycle, so Via and Mika are practicing for that. Which means I get to hear the same song over and over and over again. Yaaay¡­ I shouldn¡¯t complain. I mean, how would I feel about someone complaining I¡¯m always cooking? They¡¯re just having fun, and it¡¯s harmless. Besides, they¡¯re good at it. At least I don¡¯t have to listen to someone learning how to play the violin or something. I just realized, I haven¡¯t seen Aya since the marble race. She was standing pretty close to the finish line when the marbles landed, maybe I should go make sure she¡¯s ok. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (2) Dear Diary, Yesterday Aya and Via went down to Floor 100. With a couple of the mosquitoes who used to be ants. I guess they wanted to see if they could make friends with the dragon? It didn¡¯t work. The dragon isn¡¯t like Lewis, it isn¡¯t a person really. It attacked them as soon as they woke it up, and even though they didn¡¯t attack back it killed them. Lilly and Kimi were pretty upset they went down. I mean, the Admin did specifically tell us not to. Aya said he just didn¡¯t want us to press the button, so making friends with the dragon should be fine. Via just muttered something about feeling left out since she¡¯d never seen the floor and we all have. I think Lilly and Kimi were the most upset because if we get trapped on this floor again they won¡¯t be able to see their boyfriends. Mika and I agreed Aya and Via shouldn¡¯t have gone down there, but we didn¡¯t yell or anything. Anyways, they promised to not go down again. Via seemed pretty shaken by how Kimi and especially Lilly acted. I mean, Kimi yells a lot, but there¡¯s usually a sense that she¡¯s yelling because it¡¯s fun for her. There was no fun in the yelling today. It was closer to snarling, really. And Lilly¡­ Out of all of us she¡¯s the most even-tempered. The more upset she feels about something, the calmer she acts. I¡¯ve only heard her yell in anger like¡­ twice. So for Lilly to yell at Via, it¡¯s a big deal. And Via knows it. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll all be friends again by next week. I mean, they didn¡¯t press the button, so the Admin has no reason to trap us here again. Right? Besides, we¡¯re connected in that we¡¯re the catgirls. Nothing can keep us mad at each other too long. Although Lilly, Aya and Kimi didn¡¯t show up for the marble race this afternoon. Via went back to her inn to practice for the music competition, but Mika and I tried to find Aya. We were scared she was trying to make friends with the dragon again, but Lewis said she hadn¡¯t passed through his floor. So we went up, and we¡¯re pretty sure she was on the mosquito¡¯s floor. The giant rat things killed us when we were wandering around there, but we don¡¯t really know where else she would have gone. She still isn¡¯t back. Hopefully she shows up soon or I¡¯ll start to be really worried. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Mika and I didn¡¯t bother looking for Kimi or Lilly. We agreed it was pretty obvious Lilly was with Staab and Kimi was with Y. So anyways, yep, there¡¯s been drama. I hate drama. I hope it goes away soon. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Recipient: Admin
Subject: Re: Mosquitoes
As requested, I asked the mosquitoes to not go up through the floors this cycle. They agreed, on the condition that I take them to Floor 100. They promised to not push the button, so I took them. The dragon guarding the button killed us. They say all the mosquitoes that entered the floor died in the attack. I believe them, but you may want to verify. Since you specified I only ask they stay on their floor this cycle, I think they¡¯re planning something insane for next cycle. They haven¡¯t told me what yet, but if I find out I¡¯ll let you know. In return I request you not even consider locking us on our floors again. Thank you. ?? Aya ??
Recipient: Aya
Subject: Re: Re: Mosquitoes
¡­¡­¡­.How the heck did you get those star emojis?
Cycle 39 (3) Dear Diary, Drama continues! Ughhhh¡­ Ok so, Via and Aya went to Floor 100. Kimi freaked out thinking the Admin would trap us here again, and ran to Y. I don¡¯t know what the thought process was, but they¡¯re engaged now. Lilly is mad because she and Staab have been dating way longer than Kimi and Y, and she thinks¡­ I don¡¯t even know what she thinks. They should have waited until she and Staab got engaged first? Whatever it is, it¡¯s stupid. Other than that, Via is back to being friends with everyone. Yay! And Aya is mostly back to being friends, but she¡¯s now constantly followed by a swarm of mosquitoes. ¡­Yay? It kinda feels like Mika and I are the only sane ones in the group this cycle. Which means Mika and I have been spending a lot of time together. She¡¯s trying to teach me how to draw mandalas, since I¡¯m not very good at other kinds of drawing. It¡¯s pretty relaxing, I¡¯ve been having fun. We finished drawing on the leaves, and she finished making the treasure chest, so we put it on the walkway. The next players to find the walkway will be rewarded with a treasure chest full of useless but encouraging leaves. I can¡¯t wait. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that my roof is back! The cycle reset put it back on after Kimi burned it off. So that¡¯s good to know, in case something burns down again. Falling asleep to the sound of rain on a roof is awesome. Falling asleep to the sound of rain on your blanket is annoying. If we didn¡¯t have another house on the kobold¡¯s floor for me to sleep at last cycle I would have gone insane. In other news, Floofles the dire wolf hurt her paw somehow. We think the wolves were playing, and she got her paw stuck in a door. A couple of the kobolds said we should just kill Floofles and have her respawn all healthy. Which, that does make sense. Being hurt here is a bigger deal than being killed. But there¡¯s still this ¡°death is bad¡± feeling we all have. So that started an argument about how to handle the injury. Lilly and Aya have a spell that lets them talk with animals, so Lilly asked Floofles what she wanted to do. But, see, death is bad. So obviously Floofles didn¡¯t want to die. We don¡¯t really have a med kit or anything that could help (Kimi has med kits, but they didn¡¯t work on Floofles), and none of the kobolds were vets, so the best we could do was wrap the paw in a strip of cloth. Lewis told us to just leave Floofles be, not kill her, and maybe get her a better name. I¡¯m pretty sure he just said that ¡°Floofles¡± is a dumb name to get everyone to stop arguing about, y¡¯no, the ethical morality of murder. He doesn¡¯t like it when the kobolds get into real arguments. Lewis is a good leader. Aaaaanyways, hopefully tomorrow everything will be back to normal. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (4) Dear Diary, We forgot to tell the kobolds about the treasure chest and the leaves. A couple of them found the chest and took all the leaves. It¡¯s kinda annoying, since we worked¡­ well, we didn¡¯t work hard to draw smiley faces on all the leaves, but it took us a long time. And now we have to do it all over again, since we can¡¯t exactly tell them to put the leaves back. They were so proud of themselves for finding them. Maybe this is how the players feel every time the cycle resets. Having put in so much time and effort to get down here, only to have it poofed away. And then they have to do it again. And again. And again. Must really suck. Anyways, Floofles¡¯ paw is better today. She¡¯s almost back to normal again, so everyone is glad we didn¡¯t put her through the stress of killing her. All the other wolves are doing good. The dire wolves as a group are a lot fluffier and healthier looking than when we first met them. Their coats are super shiny, and I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re just one lazy day away from being overweight. Thankfully everyone loves running around with them and playing, so they get a lot of exercise. Oh! Via did it! I don¡¯t know how, but the dracoraptor she named Beta suddenly caught on to the concept of a saddle and rider, and he let Via put the saddle on and climb on! Via is super thrilled, and is working towards taking Beta out of their floor. First Via wants to make super sure that Beta is used to a rider, and won¡¯t randomly buck her off and eat her or something. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I never really rode horses. I was too afraid of them when I was little. But at least with a horse you know it won¡¯t try to eat you if you fall off. Via is already thinking about how to ride one of the flying things. She says since they¡¯re more feral, she¡¯ll probably have to just catch one and tie it down until it gives up and lets her do whatever she wants with it. Mika and I are slightly concerned about that, but everyone needs a hobby. Via just has a really, really scary one. It¡¯s a good thing death isn¡¯t permanent here. In other news, the soda machine continues to be a big hit. I guess a lot of people were really craving soda. There¡¯s just something about carbonation and sugar that just¡­ it hits a spot, y¡¯no? So my diner has become super popular with the kobolds lately. It takes a group of at least four of them to make it up through the floors, since they can¡¯t level up a couple things. I mean, they have to fight the players, and it wouldn¡¯t really be fair if one of them had level 100 teleportation from going through the kraken¡¯s floor so many times. And then, having gone through all that effort to get here, they aren¡¯t exactly in a hurry to leave. Maybe we should ask the Admin to put a soda machine in Nat¡¯s patio. That would be epic. I¡¯ll go write a letter now! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (5) Dear Diary, So, Via told the kobolds in her band about her raptor project. Oh yeah, the music competition! It¡¯s tomorrow! I forgot to mention it, with all the drama and stuff! People are super excited about it, there will be fireworks at the end, and Nat, Gin and I are making snacks. Well, a lot of the snacks are just me pulling things out of my inventory and putting it on a plate, but we¡¯re tweaking a lot of things (like the guacamole) to make it as good as it can be. More people are entering the music competition this time than before, so it¡¯s going to be an all-day event. We¡¯re trying to convince Lewis to wear a party hat again, but he says it would be demeaning. Which, yeah it would, but it would also be super cute. Anyways, what¡­ Oh right! Via told her band about the raptors, and how they were basically her pets now, and all this wonderful stuff. They wanted to meet the raptors, thinking they would be like the wolves. They were wrong. The raptors saw them and apparently thought ¡°oh look, new toys¡±, and spent half an hour disemboweling them. It was¡­ Ok so, for them and Via it was horrifying and terrifying. Who knew someone could survive on one HP after having their arms chewed off? But it was, just a little bit, in a very minor and ironic way, funny. I mean, ¡°hey, we want to meet the large, vicious creatures that killed you a couple times! Sure, you had to work hard to earn their trust, and even now when they¡¯re feeling snackish they bite you, but¡­ We see no possible way that this could go wrong!¡± They were asking for it. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. It kinda makes me feel good about having the raptor¡¯s trust, though. I worked hard to get to that point. I have a whole section in my recipe book dedicated to the food they like, and a detailed list of things they don¡¯t like. Via and I spent a lot of time (and pain) figuring out which ones like scritches and which ones don¡¯t. It took time and effort to become their friends, and I enjoyed the reminder of what they do to strangers. Anything can be your friend if you put the time and effort in. Even dracoraptors. You just have to earn their trust first. In other news, we finished the marble races this morning! I got silver in the championship, and Y got gold. Which, oh no, I can¡¯t talk to Y any more this cycle, the horror. How will I survive¡­ Ok, fine, he¡¯s not a bad guy. I got to know him pretty well when he was doing the salad dressing tests with the slimes, and I can see why Kimi loves him. If you can get him to be serious, he¡¯s actually really nice and considerate. I can call him a friend. But then he does things like joke about setting my whole diner on fire (next step from the roof), or calling us his harem. Actually, Staab got mad about that, so now he doesn¡¯t do it when Staab or Lilly are around, but he still does it. And he does a couple other little things that just¡­ He needs therapy. Although, to be fair, we could all use therapy. Especially the Admin. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (6) Dear Diary, The music competition was epic! A Kobold named Jon won with an amazing drum solo. I¡¯m sad Mika and Via didn¡¯t win, but I can see why they didn¡¯t. They did really good, but there¡¯s a difference between ¡°really good¡± and ¡°totally amazing¡±. Via is kinda sulking about it, but Mika is just happy they got honorable mention and played in front of a crowd. Besides, it¡¯s not like they did bad, neither of them messed up (as far as I could tell), they just didn¡¯t do anything spectacular. But hey, who am I to talk? Everyone who got on the stage did something I could never hope to do. And, of course, everyone loved the snacks. And the afterparty was fun, because the kobolds know how to party. They eventually did convince Bonecrusher the Black to wear a party hat, but he wasn¡¯t thrilled about it. Lewis is a good leader. Anyway, we expect the players to be here any day now, so most of our shenanigans will stop tomorrow. Mika and I drew on a bunch more leaves, and the treasure chest is full again. Kimi suggested engraving a message into the bottom of the chest that says something like ¡°you got here too late, someone already took the treasure¡±, just in case more than one player finds it. Which sounded funny, so we¡¯ll do that tomorrow. Now all we¡¯re worried about is someone taking the whole chest, since it isn¡¯t bolted down. Some players tend to do that; just take eeeeeverything. Staab says that in some video games, things you find on level five open up easter eggs for floor seventy, so players learn to hoard stuff. Aya says some people are just kleptomaniacs, and since there aren¡¯t police here they go wild. I think it¡¯s a mix of both things. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Oh, when Staab mentioned easter eggs, I asked what those were. He explained, then I was like ¡°nono, what¡¯s an easter? I¡¯ve never heard of that bird¡±. It was pretty hilarious to see him and Lilly try to explain the holiday and how eggs are involved to me. I mean, obviously I know what Easter is, but we¡¯ve been in here long enough that some things about our old lives are getting¡­ fuzzy. So it is possible that I forgot what the holiday was. It¡¯s kinda weird when the memories get fuzzy. It isn¡¯t straight forgetting. Like, I remember making cookies with my mom once. There was someone else there, about my age. But I don¡¯t remember if that person was a friend or a sibling. So I try to remember more about this person, and there¡¯s just a human-shaped grey spot in a bunch of memories. I still have the basic memory, but that person is gone. Which is sad. So I try to not think about it a whole lot. Mika asked me if I had fuzzy memories when we were drawing on the leaves, so I know she has fuzzy memories too. I presume we all do, but I don¡¯t want to bring it up. It isn¡¯t a happy topic, and as a group we tend to stay away from serious things. Because one serious thing could lead to another, and there are a bunch of questions we don¡¯t want to ask. Altho we are kinda friends with the Admin now. I wonder if he would answer some of them if we asked. Probably not. Taboos are taboo for a reason. Anyways. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (7) Dear Diary, The players got here today. They¡¯re going to do this thing where eighteen people push the end button at exactly the same time, just to see what happens. Other than the Admin getting upset, I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll do much. But anyways, the players had to wait around until eighteen people showed up. That took half the day. Then they had to form groups, and decide how to optimize the groups, and then decide how to time everything, and that took the rest of the day. And then, since waiting and planning had taken so long, they decided to spend the night here before starting off tomorrow. They presume other players will arrive while they¡¯re sleeping, so they set up this barricade thing around the exit and are sleeping in there. I¡¯m glad the players are thinking up new, exciting things to do. I just wish they hadn¡¯t done it in my diner. They were here aaaaaall daaaaay, so I couldn¡¯t leave. And of course no one talked to me except when they wanted to order something. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve been this bored in ages. Anyways, they expect to be at the final floor by tomorrow night, so Cycle 40 is close. I kinda wonder if the Admin will do anything big for Cycle 50. I mean, every twenty-five cycles he switches things up and implements big changes, but 50 is special. It¡¯s halfway to 100, which the players seem to think is the goal. It might be because I¡¯ve spent a lot of time with the Kobolds lately, but if everything became party-themed on Cycle 50 that would be epic. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. I don¡¯t think the Admin will do anything that really affects us next cycle. Our floor just became a jungle, so that won¡¯t change. I doubt our colors will change, even though we asked about that. On Cycle 50 maybe we¡¯ll get another catgirl, but I doubt it. I think the Admin wants our group dynamic to stay exactly the way it is, so he knows how to act with us. I mean, if he switched any of the girls out with someone else, at this point we¡¯d just blast through the dungeon until we found our girl. While teaching the new catgirl the wonders of door keys and about how our stats don¡¯t ever reset. If he messes with us, it¡¯d just lead to a huge problem for him. Mostly I¡¯m just hoping for fun new ingredients to play with, but I hope for that every cycle. Oh! Nat, Gin and I decided we¡¯re going to make a giant cake next cycle. Like, record-breaking big. Why? Because we can. We¡¯ll have to make it on Staab¡¯s floor, and use the volcano as an oven. He said that¡¯s fine as long as we give the other guys on his floor food that day. We asked what food they want, and they decided pizza. Gin was like ¡°come on, give us a challenge!¡± so they upgraded their order to three-layer deep-dish pizzas with extra cheese. At which point I realized, Staab is the only one of them that¡¯s ever left their floor. They have no idea what we¡¯re capable of cooking. I mean, we¡¯ll give them pizza, but they haven¡¯t even seen my diner. They just don¡¯t know. Those ghosts and hobgoblins must have really sad, boring lives. I feel sorry for them. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 39 (Changes) Y stood near the back of the kobold army, waiting for the players to get closer. People around him shifted, weapons ready. A wave of nearly-invisible magic pulsed through the dungeon. Y looked down, wondering how many players had survived the dragon on the final floor. A second wave of magic followed the first, and the fighting paused. Everyone watched the floor, waiting. A third wave of magic crashed over them. Golden light filled the dungeon, resetting everything. Y watched the gold fade to gray, and tried to spot the system message as it told him he was Item 793, needed a stat reset, and belonged on floor 97. The message flashed.
Item: 793
Has passed through entrance of Floor 100: TRUE
If TRUE: Send to random unoccupied location on Floor 1 ERROR: Item 793 not designated PLAYER
Previous command:
If Item assigned to Floor 1: Assign designation PLAYER
Item 793 now designated PLAYER
ERROR: PLAYER 793 not complete
Previous command:
If PLAYER not complete: send to customization plane, proceed when PLAYER chooses command APPLY
Sending: PLAYER 793 to Customization Plane
Y blinked as the box vanished, not sure he saw all that correctly. Gold light replaced the gray, only to fade away again, leaving him in a void. A message box blinked, waiting for him to acknowledge it.
WELCOME! You are in the customization plane! Here you will find options to change your physical appearance and more!
Name: You Would you like to change your name? (2) name changes available.
¡°Yes,¡± Y said, extremely thankful the option had finally been given him.
Please enter new name:_______________
A keyboard appeared, and Y pressed a single letter, followed by enter.
New name: Y
Are you sure?
¡°Ye¡­¡± He hesitated. He could give himself any name. Any name at all¡­ Nah. ¡°Yes.¡±
Gender: Male Would you like to change your gender?
¡°No.¡±
Race: Kobold Would you like to change your race?
¡°Yes,¡± he said, wondering what options he¡¯d get. A list popped up. He scrolled through them, debating becoming a dark elf when his eyes landed on ¡°neko¡±. Grinning, he selected it.
New race: Neko
Over the next few seconds his whole body tingled as scales turned to fine fur, ears grew and face changed. He flexed his fingers as they morphed, watching claws extend and retract.
Changes complete.
Statistics for you, for race:
He accepted them all, not bothering to change anything. Whatever he got, he¡¯d be happier than with kobold stats.
Statistics: Approved
Magical affinity color: none Please choose one:
White Black Lt. Blue Drk. Blue Purple Red Orange Yellow Green Brown Pink
The colors all had dropdown menus. The first one he clicked was white. It had a bunch of light magic spells under it, fairly strong ones, most of which seemed designed to appeal to solo players. Sadly, he was not a solo player. The next one was black, which apparently meant shadow magic. He selected it without checking the others. Besides, thanks to the color-coding of the catgirls, he knew what most of them involved. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
New Magical Affinity Color: Black
Please choose five spells:
Teleportation and invisibility were the obvious choices. And silence, because what¡¯s the point of being invisible if you aren¡¯t quiet? Sphere of Darkness was always good. Darkvision was already a race feature, so he didn¡¯t need that¡­ Ah. Living Shadow. Make the target¡¯s shadow attack them. It was one of those ¡°one target per spell level¡± spells, so after a few uses it basically became an AOE spell.
Spells: Chosen
Please set appearance defaults, which may be changed or overridden depending on race:
Y smiled, watching the 2D human avatar on the screen change as he chose his looks. It was close to what he¡¯d looked like as a human, and he didn¡¯t want to change much. Heterochromia was the sum of his ambition in that department, which he felt fitting for a cat person. For clothes he went with something simple yet formal. And lastly, glasses. He¡¯d missed glasses.
Appearance Defaults: Chosen
Please review everything, and say ¡°apply¡± when ready.
¡°Apply.¡± The screen flashed.
Item: 793
Has passed through entrance of Floor 100: TRUE
If TRUE: Send to random unoccupied location on Floor 1
A wave of gold magic washed over him once more, this time leaving him standing on a stone floor in a huge cavern. People surrounded him, most staring at a spot two feet in front of them. A screen flashed in front of Y, trying to get his attention.
MESSAGE FROM ADMIN Welcome to the 40th cycle! I¡¯m instituting some changes, most of them small. The biggest one is this: only players who have reached the final floor (100) are being allowed to continue. As such, you¡¯ll notice fewer players around. Be aware that you have until cycle 60 to press the end button twice. If you don¡¯t, you won¡¯t be allowed to continue. To make things a bit more fair, from here on out six people, rather than three, must push the button to end the cycle. Good luck!
Y closed the message. A new one immediately popped up.
Welcome to a new cycle! You are allowed to keep 1 weapon and 1 piece of armor from the previous cycle. Please open your inventory and choose.
He opened his inventory, and was surprised to find it held everything he¡¯d had as a kobold. For weapon he chose a +1 crossbow, and for armor he kept a Ring of Defense.
Weapon and armor chosen. All other weapons and armor will now be removed from your inventory.
Statistics have been reset to:
ERROR: NEW PLAYER
Previous command:
If NEW PLAYER: Change nothing
Changes applied. Open customization options?
Yes No
He hit no.
Nothing customized.
Good luck, Y!
¡°Thanks,¡± he muttered, looking around as the screen vanished. He didn¡¯t see any familiar red ponytails, but a silver pixie cut wasn¡¯t too far away. As he wandered towards Via, Nikki ran up to her. She didn¡¯t notice a group of men who¡¯d adopted the viking aesthetic following her. Y stopped, watching. The vikings walked up to the girls, suggesting with broad grins that they should form a party. Via looked uncomfortable, but Nikki cheerfully told them they already had a party. The vikings said they had a better party. Nikki told them that, sadly, it didn¡¯t matter. The lead viking reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. Thanks to teleportation, Y beat him there. He smirked as the viking recoiled. ¡°Sorry, guys, these girls are in my harem.¡± He pushed his glasses into place. ¡°You¡¯ll have to find your own.¡± The viking blinked. ¡°Your¡­¡± Y turned to Nikki, dropping his hand. ¡°Have you seen Kim?¡± ¡°Oh, Y! Not yet,¡± she answered. Via shook her head. ¡°Sorry.¡± He nodded, turning back to the vikings. ¡°...You¡¯re still here.¡± ¡°Yeah, we are,¡± the lead viking said. He pulled himself up to his full seven-foot height. ¡°I can make you respawn with a single punch. What do you have, twink?¡± Y raised an eyebrow. ¡°An intelligence level greater than three. Now go away.¡± ¡°No. If you want to-¡± A fireball hit him in the face. To everyone¡¯s surprise, he vanished. Kimi appeared in front of Via, glowing dagger in one hand and a fireball in the other. ¡°Who¡¯s next?¡± Nikki pointed, taking a step back to do so. ¡°I found her!¡± Y laughed as the vikings left to find their leader. ¡°Thanks, Nik.¡± Kimi looked at him with fire in her eyes. ¡°You can leave too, dude.¡± ¡°I can, yes,¡± he said, grinning. ¡°Are you sure you want me to, Kim?¡± The fire evaporated as she realized who he was. She put her dagger away, slowly walking around him. ¡°Hmm. I approve.¡± He bowed. ¡°Thank you. Now, shall we go track down the rest of my hare- I mean, the rest of the group?¡± Via sighed. ¡°Why do you call us that?¡± ¡°He thinks it¡¯s funny,¡± Kimi told her, latching onto Y¡¯s arm. ¡°It is funny,¡± he said. Nikki pointed behind them. ¡°I see Aya and Mika!¡± A note from the author! Hey! Sadie here! Yep, you read that right, we¡¯ve reached the end of Volume 1. But worry not, fair readers, I have plans. At the moment, I¡¯m going to mark this story as ¡°completed¡±, and then start making changes. I¡¯ll separate some of the chapters into a volume called ¡°Extras¡±, and figure out art for the covers. Then I¡¯m going to go through and fix some of the inconsistencies/plot holes. And fill out my lovely spreadsheet so I don¡¯t make new inconsistencies. After that, my plan is to shove the whole book onto Amazon, in case anyone (coughmecough) wants a physical copy. During all that, I¡¯ll be writing a backlog for Volume 2, where Nikki and co. will be Official Players. I¡¯m debating having a few more non-diary chapters in there, but not a significant percent. One or two per cycle, max. As normal, those chapters wouldn¡¯t be from Nikki¡¯s POV. Just so everyone doesn¡¯t forget this exists, every other Wednesday until the next volume starts, I¡¯m going to be releasing chapters with art (admittedly mostly from Picrew) and updates. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. When the new volume starts, I¡¯ll be switching to a Monday/Friday schedule. For the past ten months I haven¡¯t had much time to write short stories, and tbh I miss them. Not that I don¡¯t love writing about colorful chaotic catgirls, but they have kinda been my main thing for long enough. If you suddenly find yourself needing something else to read, my superhero story VINES is going to get a new volume starting on the 20th. The first volume contains the same amount of cooking as this story, much less marbles, more weresharks, legitimate time loops, and a Costco. In case you wondered. Oh, and in case you wondered¡­ The Admin has removed Players before. On Cycle 20, all players who hadn¡¯t passed the entrance of Floor 50 were removed. Just to weed out the slackers. However, since the doors don¡¯t recognize some players as players, he had no reason to suppose the System would correctly identify all the players when asked to do something different. So he put ¡°check passage through this door¡± insead of ¡°check if this player has been on this floor¡±. For Cycle 40 he just swapped out ¡°door 50¡± with ¡°door 100¡±. But! Couldn¡¯t he have written a code to specifically block the catgirls from becoming players? Eh, probably. But that would have, like, required effort? And then he might miss one, or the System would ignore it anyways¡­ Best to just let it happen. Besides, it¡¯ll get those damn mosquitoes out of his figurative hair. Other than that, Q&A time in the comments is open! Go ahead and ask anything you like down there! Thanks so much for reading! ~Sadie Cycle 26 (Extra) Dorothy woke up in a strange room. And yet, it wasn¡¯t strange. She knew it was her room, in the inn she owned, and her name wasn¡¯t Dorothy. It had been Dorothy. Now it was Gigi. And her hair was the color of cantaloupe. Aaaand she was part cat. She sat down on the bed, rubbing her face. How did she get here? Well, she¡¯d been on her way to work¡­ And then her truck had left the ground. That was about the extent of her memory. She had vague memories of an inn, two inns, of people, of magic? Statistics, a sense of duty, ice cream cake and burnt fries. A feeling that two things were happening at once. Marbles were important, and yet they weren¡¯t. There was a family of ducks whose every whim was catered to, and yet they didn''t exist (and never had). The more she tried to remember, the more confused she got. What had happened? Possibly unrelated, but why did she have bangs? Sure, cat ears and a tail were all new and unexpected, but suddenly having bangs was weird. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Gigi frowned at her hair, heading out of the room. The room didn¡¯t have any answers. Automatically, as if she¡¯d done this a hundred times before, she went to the end of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. At the bottom was a desk, with her chair behind it. That was where she was supposed to be. But that seemed boring. Sitting behind a desk all day, with no one to talk to. Somehow she knew there were five other shops outside. Shops with catgirls like her in them. A diner, with a gr- pi- catgirl named Sa- Ni- who worked as the chef. And there was a general store, with a br- re- catgirl named Ki- Al- who ran it. The more Gigi tried to remember, the more confused she got. The only way to know for sure what was going on was to find someone and ask them. She got to the front door and opened it. A wave of emotion hit her out of nowhere, and Gigi knew she wasn¡¯t supposed to leave. She was the owner of the inn. She wasn¡¯t supposed to leave. But¡­ that only raised more questions. Steeling herself against the sirens in her conscience, Gigi walked outside. Cycle 40 (Admin) Admin 6 looked around the park, agreeing it was very peaceful. A gentle breeze stirred the cattails in the lake, making a relaxing sound. ¡°Yeah, pretty nice,¡± he decided. Admin 5 beamed. ¡°It gets better,¡± she said, opening her inventory. ¡°Check this out.¡± She pulled out a loaf of bread and walked to the edge of the water, making clicking sounds. Admin 2 pulled bread out of his inventory, following her. Admins 1, 3 and 6 trailed behind, still looking around. Admin 4 was closely examining a dandelion, frowning at it. A flock of ducks came swimming out of the reeds, quacking as they got closer to the people. There were four adults and a dozen ducklings. The adults were wearing, respectively, a pink top hat, a bow tie, a tiara and a monocle. The ducklings weren¡¯t wearing anything, but they each had a different color. Admin 6 instinctively approved of the color-coding for identification. ¡°So that¡¯s why you requested all the ducks,¡± Admin 1 laughed, kneeling down. A pink duckling swam up to him, cautiously optimistic about getting bread. ¡°Yeah,¡± Admin 5 said, tearing the bread into small pieces. ¡°I had them look like normal ducks for a while, but I couldn¡¯t tell them apart without pulling up their IN.¡± ¡°Do they age?¡± Admin 3 asked. ¡°The adults don¡¯t. I have the ducklings on a three-cycle routine; baby, adolescent, adult.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, you promised you were going to send me your routine code,¡± Admin 4 said, looking up from the flower. ¡°You¡¯ve got it on a couple things in here, don¡¯t you?¡± Admin 5 smiled. ¡°What can I say? My mind rebels at stagnation.¡± The Admins stayed until the ducks got full and wandered off. Admin 5 promised to share her miraculous non-crashing code with everyone. They all agreed she would win ¡°most relaxing private floor¡±, even before seeing Admin 6¡¯s private floor. It was the ducks that did it. They left her dungeon, awaiting an invite from Admin 6. Admin 6 had been quietly panicking about that since the competition had first been suggested. Mostly because, he didn¡¯t have a private floor. He¡¯d never bothered making a place just for himself. After all, he¡¯d made the whole damn dungeon, he could go anywhere he liked. Why would he spend extra time working on something no one would ever see? Now he had two options: slap together a private area in ten minutes and hope they didn¡¯t notice the crappy coding, or go to one of the lower levels where players weren¡¯t around and claim it was private. Actually¡­ He split Floor 93 in two, making the top half private. There. Private walkway in the clouds. He frowned, making the trees slightly taller. Private walkway in the clouds and treetops. Remove the treasure chest. Add¡­ Screw it. He imported the raptors from Floor 90, putting them in random locations around the walkway. For the lolz he made it so they could see through clouds and fog. Anything else needed? Probably, but there wasn¡¯t time to think about what. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. He went to the biggest tree and shaved the top off, making a nice platform area. Then he sent an invite. The other Admins popped in, immediately looking around. They wandered to the edge of the tree, examining the walkway. ¡°Kinda humid,¡± Admin 2 said, watching a cloud pass by at waist height. ¡°I like the change,¡± Admin 1 said, nodding. ¡°Having everything always be a perfect temperature makes you loose appreciation for it.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± Admin 6 agreed. ¡°Is this a maze?¡± Admin 5 asked, pointing out into the clouds. ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°Cool!¡± She headed off, vanishing around a tree. Admin 4 wiggled the handrail. ¡°You made this? You didn¡¯t code it?¡± ¡°More or less. One of my catgirl groups asked for a project; I told them to make this for me.¡± The other Admins paused at that, looking troubled. Admin 3 was the one to say it. ¡°You¡­ talk with them?¡± Admin 6 tried to brush it off. ¡°I mean, not talk, the occasional email or two¡­ Well, not email, but y¡¯no¡­ NPC¡¯s have good ideas sometimes. I¡¯ve always kept it professional.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­ But¡­¡± A shriek cut through the air, ending the conversation. There was the sound of running on metal, a scream from Admin 5, and with a thump she went silent. The Admins stared into the clouds, extremely concerned. ¡°Oh yeah,¡± Admin 6 said softly. ¡°Forgot about them.¡± ¡°Forgot about what?¡± Admin 2 asked, backing away. A dracoraptor came out of nowhere, landing on his shoulders. Admin 2 screamed as long, serrated teeth pierced his neck. Admins 1 and 3 took off running down different walkways, terrified. Admin 4 scooted towards the raptor as Admin 6 did his best to not laugh. ¡°Huh. Raccoon? You¡¯ve got some heavy modifiers in there; did you splice in a goose?¡± ¡°Canadian goose, yeah. Tried straight raccoon for a cycle, but giving a mammal feathers really messes with them. Besides, goose makes them more aggressive and comes with a couple flock/pack instincts that work well.¡± In the distance, Admin 3 screamed for help. ¡°What did you do with the rest of the goose?¡± Admin 4 asked. ¡°And wouldn¡¯t a giant raccoon have worked?¡± Admin 6 shrugged. ¡°Dinosaurs are cooler than ¡®Animal but Big¡¯. I turned them into ghost ducks and put them on a catgirl floor with one real duck.¡± ¡°Neat.¡± Admin 4 watched the raptor gnaw Admin 2¡¯s arm. ¡°One last question: why did you put the raptors here?¡± ¡°It makes for good exercise.¡± Admin 1 ran by, completely panicking. Two raptors followed, running along the handrails. Their arms were out, feathers allowing them to keep perfect balance. ¡°I¡¯m leaving now,¡± Admin 4 decided. ¡°Good bye.¡± He vanished. Admin 6 laughed to himself, moving to lean against a handrail. A raptor appeared out of nowhere, flying straight at his face. A mouth full of teeth was the last thing he saw before respawning in his room. Cycle 40 (1) Dear Diary, Well, the cycle reset. Pretty boring. Not much happened. Except, oh yeah, I¡¯m a player now!!! We all are! Well, by ¡°we¡± I mean us catgirls, and Staab and Y, and the mosquito/ant people. Turns out, when we went to push the reset button that one time, we were marked as a person who¡¯s been to Floor 100. And then this cycle, the Admin only let players who have been to Floor 100 continue. Buuuuuut the System was like ¡°everyone who¡¯s been to Floor 100 is a player? Ok!¡± And it made us players! Oh, Via is here, too, since she went down with Aya and the mosquitoes that one time. Anyways, yeah, when the Cycle reset, instead of sending me to my room like always, it sent me to some weird void place, where it asked me what I wanted to be. I told it I wanted to stay a catgirl. I think next cycle I¡¯ll be able to change my color?? But I don¡¯t know, I kinda got used to being green. It isn¡¯t as bad, now that I have a choice. OH!!!!! MY STUFF DOESN¡¯T AUTOMATICALLY TURN GREEN ANY MORE!!!!!!! Guess what color shirt I¡¯m wearing! Not green, it¡¯s blue!!! And not some kind of teal, nope, it is legit navy blue. We were all pretty psyched when we found that out, but Mika actually started crying. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. We also got the choice to change our name and gender, and what we look like in general, but everyone decided to stay the same with those. Y changed from a kobold into a catboi- the official race name is ¡°neko¡±, but if we still call ourselves catgirls then he¡¯s a catboi. And Staab and Lilly- Oh! Turns out, her name is spelled Lily! I¡¯ve been spelling it wrong this whole time, and never knew. I¡¯ll probably keep on spelling it wrong, out of habit, but players get to see each other¡¯s stats kinda, so I got to see her name spelled out. Anyways, she and Staab changed into elves. I guess they talked about it once, so they knew what to do. She¡¯s the only one of us who isn¡¯t a catgirl any more. The ant people, they¡¯re weird. Turns out, there were three of them. They kinda don¡¯t know how to walk with just two feet any more, and they were always touching. One is a human, one is an otterkin, and one is a catboi. I¡¯ll talk about what we did tomorrow, but before I sleep this is most important: groups only allow six people. Lilly and Staab decided to be their own team. Y took Lilly¡¯s place in our group. And then Aya¡­ decided to go with the ant people. I kinda feel upset about that. I mean, I don¡¯t mind Lilly teaming up with her boyfriend. Staab understands how important us being a group is. But the ants¡­ they don¡¯t want Aya to be with us. They want Aya to be one of them. So yeah, I don¡¯t like that. Anyways, we have a lot of walking to do tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (2) Dear Diary, WE FOUND MORE CATGIRLS!!! We¡¯re currently in the inn on Floor 14, where a yellow catgirl named Carol is in charge. We got here earlier today, and they were like ¡°aaaaaahh we didn¡¯t think players would be here yet, we weren¡¯t ready!!!!¡± And we were like ¡°oh yeah, we know your pain, sorry about showing up like this!¡± And they were like ¡°¡­wait.¡± So we told them all about how we used to be NPCs, but we screwed some things up for the Admin, and we¡¯re players now! They were pretty interested in all that. Anyways, the floors are set up so the players can get through two or three a day. We¡¯re players now, but our stats stayed the same from the last cycle. So, yeah, we¡¯re kinda way too strong for these floors. The first floor we entered, we were kinda expecting to be attacked and it¡¯d take us a while to get through. It¡¯s a lava floor, with a couple kobolds in it. So we got our weapons out, were walking through, and Mika was hit with an arrow. It did zero damage. So the kobolds hit her with all their arrows, and it did like one damage. Mostly it annoyed her, so she sent an ice volley at them, and they died instantly. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. So that was easy. Then the next floor was a jungle floor. Ugh. We were walking through, using our quicksand platform method, and a bunch of mosquitoes swarmed us. But they couldn¡¯t bite us. We were like ¡°¡­huh¡±, and just kept going. The next floor is ice, and it has yetis and those bat things in it. By then we¡¯d figured it out, so when the yetis attacked, we just waved and said hi, and kept walking. I think that kinda freaked them out, especially since they attacked us with everything they had, and we weren¡¯t hurt at all. Anyways, we spent last night on Floor 9, which is a maze with slimes. I still have access to my cooking inventory, so we just found a nice corner and put ranch dressing around us. No problem. Then this morning we continued waltzing our way down the dungeon, not getting hurt at all, and we found a catgirl floor!! We knew there had to be floors like ours where players could all meet up, so we agreed with Lilly and Aya to wait for each other when we got to one of those floors. We got here just after noon, and Staab and Lilly got here a couple hours later. Aya and the ants (I¡¯m still going to call them ants even though they aren¡¯t any more) aren¡¯t here yet. I hope they get here tonight or early tomorrow. I wonder if the shopkeeper catgirl here sells sending stones. If she does, we can give them to Aya and Lilly, and then we¡¯ll know where we all are. I have to remember, when we get to our floor, to put my sending stone in my inventory. I wish I could tell Nat and Gin where I am, but my stone is probably still sitting in my drawer by my bed. Actually¡­ I wonder, if we die, where would we respawn? I¡¯ll have to go find out! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (3) The stegosaurus herd moved slowly across their floor, grazing peacefully. A spinosaurus watched over them; a threatening presence that they¡¯d learned kept them safe. In the distance, a pack of velociraptors slept on the backs of two brontosaurus¡¯. Up above flew a flock of dimorphodons, searching for insects in the tall grass. A golden light flashed from the entrance, signaling intruders. The spinosaurus turned his head, growling as the stegosaurus herd moved into formation. Six bipeds came through the entrance, walking at a casual pace. They looked around, strange ears turning in every direction. Suddenly one of them gave an alarming squeal. She shot forwards, running at a surprising speed for something that small. The spinosaurus moved to intercept her, and was attacked. The silver-tailed creature wrapped her arms around his neck, still making the high-pitched sound. ¡°Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh GIRLS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?!!!¡± She climbed to the top of the spino¡¯s skull, clinging on. The spino shook his head, whipping it back and forth, but she stayed on. The rest approached slowly. ¡°Big?¡± ¡°Dangerous?¡± ¡°A new pet you want to keep?¡± The spino spun around, trying to dislodge the catgirl. ¡°It¡¯s a SPINOSAURUS!!! It¡¯s the biggest sauropod ever found! Look at its sail isn¡¯t it cool???¡± Giving up, the spino turned to the stegos. He knelt down, tilting his head at them. The herd leader understood. She turned, whipping her tail at the intruder. ¡°OH MY GOSH GIRLS THERE¡¯S A STEGOOoooooooo¡­¡± The spino huffed in gratitude, watching the catgirl fly off into the distance, then stood to his full height. He roared, swiping his claws threateningly at the rest of the group. They looked¡­ unimpressed. He got the feeling something was wrong here. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The silver catgirl came running back, this time holding a very annoyed velociraptor. ¡°Ok sure the spinosaurus is kinda big, but can I keep this one?!¡± The velociraptor screeched, kicking her in the face. It had no visible effect. The spinosaurus took a step back, growing very worried. Dear Diary, Ok so, when we die, we respawn where players would respawn. We don¡¯t go back to our old floor. Sad. Aya and the ants got to Floor 14 late last night. They¡¯ve been clearing all the floors, not just walking through them, so it¡¯s taking them a little longer than it takes us. I asked the shopkeeper catgirl here if she had sending stones, and she does! So we can all talk now! Oh yeah, Kimi had her inventory locked. Since she has access to eeeeeverything, and at high levels, the Admin told her he¡¯d lock it until we got to our floor. Everyone else gets to keep our inventory, since having ranch dressing doesn¡¯t make me any more OP than having lvl 79 teleport does. But he didn¡¯t tell us to not push the button, and we are players now, so we decided we¡¯re gonna push the button. Plus there was this thing that said all players have to push the button twice now? So everyone in my group will push the button once and see what he has to say about it. Aya thinks we shouldn¡¯t, and Staab isn¡¯t sure, but no one in my group thinks it¡¯s a bad idea. So we¡¯re gonna do it. It¡¯ll be fun! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (4) Dear Diary, We found another catgirl floor! We¡¯re now on Floor 28, staying at the inn here. It kinda looks like we¡¯ll have to spend one night on the ground somewhere, and the next in an inn. Last night we spent talking to some very nice ghosts, who are kinda tired of trying to be spooky all the time. We gave them a key this morning, and after the players all pass through they¡¯re going to explore a bit and make new friends! So, I figured out why Via never talked about her old floor. Well, yesterday we found out that Floor 17 is full of dinosaurs, and she was like ¡°yep, I live here now¡±, and spent a while playing with them. It looked like she was just having a lot of fun, but whenever we said we should keep going she kinda acted weird. Like, I know she loves dinosaurs, but we basically had to drag her away. After that she was kinda quiet until we got to the ghosts and stayed there. Then when we left, she was quiet again. And then we got to Floor 23, and she wanted to teleport all the way across. Next time we probably will, but since she didn¡¯t explain, we wanted to cross the normal way. It¡¯s a water floor, so we got onto a raft and started paddling. There are sharks and eels, but they¡¯re so low-level they don¡¯t bother us. At the center of the floor is a big, wild-looking rock formation, with caves and tunnels all over. It¡¯s almost a maze, but Via took us straight through. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. And that¡¯s where we met the sirens. They are the most pretentious, uptight group of jerks I¡¯ve ever met. Seriously, they didn¡¯t even act happy to see Via even though they recognized her immediately! And then they acted like she was a horrible person for being a player! Just because she¡¯s a player! I mean, Via is still a pacifist, she hasn¡¯t ever killed anyone, or even really hurt them! She¡¯s support! And we found out a new siren took her place when she became a catgirl, and that girl acted so self-righteous, like Via was sent away for not being good enough, and she was chosen to be a siren! Ok, when she said she was ¡°chosen¡± to replace Via, I cracked up. Because seriously, there¡¯s no way the Admin put that much thought into it. The sirens didn¡¯t like me laughing at them, and started singing to hypnotize us. So Y put a cone of silence around them, and Kimi and Mika stabbed them to death. It¡¯s the first floor we¡¯ve specifically killed people on. All the other times it¡¯s been self-defense or because being hit with twenty arrows is annoying. But yeah, this is the first time we were like ¡°yep, these peeps are gonna die¡±. Not sure how I feel about that. Aaaaanyways, yeah, I¡¯m glad Via got sent to us and not any of the other sirens. Altho, if one of the jerks got sent to us, we probably would have ended up ignoring her if she was mean. Like we ignored Dorothy. If you don¡¯t want to be nice, we won¡¯t talk to you. Nya. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (5) Dear Diary, We¡¯re going down the dungeon way too fast for everyone who lives here. Basically every floor we pass through we scare someone half to death. Or, straight to death sometimes. But yeah, they very much aren¡¯t expecting us. And we aren¡¯t even halfway down yet. Kimi remembered pets were a thing, so we all got pets! I¡¯m not specifically the green one any more, so I could get anything I wanted! The Admin added spiders this cycle, so I now have an adorable fist-sized spooder named Professor Plum. With him around, my feet stick to anything I want them to, so I can walk up walls and stuff! It¡¯s fun. Via got her owl again, and says it¡¯s the same owl. I don¡¯t know how she can tell, or if all the pets are just one creature, copy/pasted into being as many as are needed. Kimi got a monkey, Mika got a dog, and Y got one of the flying whales. He says it amuses him. I still don¡¯t know why it¡¯s a thing. Oh, Lilly and Aya didn¡¯t get pets. Staab got a dog. The people who aren¡¯t ants¡­ I need a better way to refer to them¡­ the triplets? I know two of them are twins and one is older, but meh. Triplets is fine for reference in a diary they¡¯ll never see. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Anyways, the oldest triplet got a cat, but the other two didn¡¯t get anything. I¡¯m still kinda mad at them for taking Aya. I mean, she seems happy with them, and she could switch back to being with us if she wanted to. So it isn¡¯t all bad that she¡¯s staying with them. If she¡¯s having fun, good. But I still feel like we should stay a group. We¡¯ve always been a group, we¡¯ve always been here for each other, and I don¡¯t want that to change. Oh, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve talked about food yet! I didn¡¯t get anything new in my inventory, which is very sad. Buuuut, the catgirls who cook all have their own recipes, and the one on Floor 28 had a cookbook! That¡¯s right, a full cookbook! She has all the same things I do, so a lot of the recipes in there I know already, but she has a couple things I never thought of. Like, she has a whole section on burritos and quesadillas. I can¡¯t wait to get home and try them. I promised her I¡¯d try to get her a recipe book with all my pasta recipes that Nat and I made. So I think I¡¯m going to ask Nat and Gin to write a full recipe book when the cycle resets, before I get down there again. I presume we¡¯ll be sent back to Floor 1 when the cycle resets. I mean, we¡¯re players now, and that¡¯s what happens to players. Unless the Admin changes things and makes us NPC¡¯s again. Which¡­ I don¡¯t know, I don¡¯t want him to do that yet. Maybe later, but not just yet. This is still too exciting. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (6) Dear Diary, We¡¯re on Floor 46 now, I didn¡¯t write last night. Sorry. It¡¯s another catgirl floor, so that¡¯s fun. They were having a butterfly racing contest when we came in, and when we explained how we used to be NPC¡¯s they let us watch. It was pretty cool! And it was just pretty. Their floor is a big meadow with lots of wildflowers, which they¡¯ve worked hard at making as pretty as possible. Apparently they asked early on for the Admin to stop resetting their floor each cycle, and he agreed. So they have all kinds of trails and gardens through the floor. It¡¯s amazing. Which kinda makes me wonder if the Admin has stopped resetting our floor, too. Since the lotus is still around, and the walkway in the clouds, which normally would have been poofed away due to being foreign objects. Actually, that would explain why my diary stays written in, too. Y said the ¡°invisible¡± part of their floor, the part where they live that players can¡¯t get to, doesn¡¯t reset. But if they build anything outside of that, like they built a trebuchet once, it vanishes when the cycle resets. Which is interesting. Or at least I think it¡¯s interesting. Anyways, we¡¯re getting to floors that we can¡¯t just waltz through. None of us have died yet, but the NPC¡¯s ranged attacks are starting to hurt. And bugs can bite us now. So we asked the Spy on this floor what floors are below us and how to get through as safely as possible. It¡¯s time to start strategizing! This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Apparently we¡¯re about to go up against a bunch of bitey bugs and things that explode. And a giant fish monster with legs and poison claws. ¡­among other things, but that¡¯s what we decided to prepare for. So we got a couple jars of bug repellent, made sure everyone has good ranged attacks, and I spent a couple hours buffing up my ¡°heal poison¡± spell. We still aren¡¯t going to teleport across any of the floors. We talked about it, and decided we were all still having fun exploring. Lilly and Staab are kinda focusing on stealth now, instead of straight attacking. I keep forgetting her name is spelled Lily. And Aya¡¯s group have decided they¡¯ll stop trying to completely clear floors at Floor 50. Which, I get that. They said next cycle they¡¯ll only clear floors 50 through 75, and then the cycle after that 75 through 100, which includes the kobolds and the dragon at the end. I guess it¡¯s good to have plans. Oh, Lily (I spelled it right!) and Staab are going to be in our group next cycle, and Kimi and Y will be their own team. So that¡¯ll be fun. It¡¯ll definitely make things different. Since we were making plans for the future, Mika said she might try a solo run at some point. I don¡¯t want to do that, but if Via said she wanted to be a team with just me, that could be fun. I just think I¡¯d be too lonely by myself, even if we did meet up every other day. But that¡¯s still a couple cycles from now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (7) Dear Diary, Today we went through the first ¡°boss¡± floor that was actually difficult. There was the giant fish thing we¡¯d been warned about, and then he had a horde of smaller fish monster things that I¡¯m pretty sure were based on piranhas. It¡­ was not fun. Next time we¡¯re gonna turn ourselves invisible and teleport as far as possible. If only to avoid the poison claws. No one died, but I came really close. I think Mika came second closest. Thankfully the floor after that was just a forest with wolves and owls, so that was easy. Not even dire wolves. I haven¡¯t been able to make any meatballs, so I just dumped raw hamburger meat in front of them. They seemed to like it, or at least it occupied them enough that we were able to get halfway across the floor before they noticed. I don¡¯t like killing dog-shaped things, since we¡¯re friends with the dire wolves on Floor 94. I know we¡¯re kinda supposed to, but it makes me feel bad. Plus I don¡¯t like killing things anyways. Anyways, I¡¯m tired from that big fight, but I had to write about it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
The Floor 60 Catgirls tended to their duck pond, making sure their ducks were happy and healthy. Or, as healthy as ghost ducks could be. The one real duck, wearing a tiny bow tie, was probably the healthiest duck in the entire dungeon. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Gigi called to the real duck, holding out a new tie. The ties tended to get soggy and gross after three or four days, so they changed them every other day. Today it was Gigi¡¯s day to change the tie. The duck came running over, nibbling at her tail as she knelt down, petting him. She gave him an offering of bread crumbs before unclipping the back of the old tie. As she touched it, the bow went from pink to orange. Then she slid the new tie over the duck¡¯s head. The duck briefly ruffled his feathers, letting the band slide under them. That done, she gave him more bread and pats, and stood to go back to her inn. She happened to glance up, and saw a group of players coming through the entrance. Panicking, Gigi ran to the diner. ¡°Players are here!¡± she shouted, running through the door. The other five catgirls stared at her, their tails poofing in alarm. ¡°Already?¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°How?¡± As a group, they ran into the plaza. Seeing the players getting closer, they panicked more and ran for their shops. Gigi dove through the door of her inn, sliding behind the desk. She arranged herself as was expected, smiling in the proper innkeeper way. She shoved her notebook full of doodles into a drawer and pulled out the Official Ledger for her inn. After a few minutes the group of players walked in. They were all catpeople. Gigi hesitated, foggy memories playing in the back of her mind. The catgirls paused when they saw her, tilting their heads and squinting. They looked between themselves, then the blue one stepped forwards. ¡°¡­Dorothy?¡± Cycle 40 (8) Dear Diary, HOLY CRAP WE FOUND DOROTHY!!! She¡¯s a catgirl on Floor 60 now! Like, a proper catgirl, not a half-ghost half-traumatized catgirl. She¡¯s still orange, still the innkeeper, still officially named Gigi, but it¡¯s Dororthy! And she¡¯s whole! We got to the floor and were like- well, ok, first we got to the floor and gave the catgirls there a heart attack, because we were there too early. Like always. Then we went to the inn to ask for the room and we recognized the catgirl! It took us a couple seconds to figure out how, and Mika was the one to actually ask if it was her, and it was! Y had never met Dorothy, but Kimi told him about her, so he already knew everything. Staab had kinda met her, at least enough to recognize her before we explained what was going on. The triplets had no clue who she was, tho. Anyways, yeah! She¡¯s Gigi now, and does everything with the catgirls here. They said she used to be kinda see-through and creepy, like she¡¯d been on our floor, but became normal the same cycle we got Via. Which, that makes sense. Gigi seems really nice and cool. She¡¯s creative like Mika but her personality is more like Lilly. Lily. ¡­I might start spelling her name Llilly just to be totally wrong about it. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Anyways, I kinda wonder what would have happened if Via had come here and Gigi had stayed on our floor. ¡­I probably wouldn¡¯t have been eaten by raptors quite as much. Other than that, who knows. I should ask Gigi her opinion on dinosaurs. Oh! So, apparently the triplets, when they were still mosquitoes, traveled up through the floors as far as they could get. Which annoyed the Admin, but what else is new. So they know what¡¯s on all the floors between here and our floor, which is cool. They said that on the next floor down lives a gold dragon and a bunch of wyverns, and the catgirls here (we discussed this in the diner) said her name is Jenny. Well, her official name is Painbringer the Gold, but she goes by Jenny. They say she comes up on occasion to have tea, and is super nice. So we spent a while talking about Lewis and the kobolds, and Jenny and her wyverns, and we told Gigi and the catgirls here that they should really explore more! I don¡¯t know why they haven¡¯t ever left their floor. We didn¡¯t really ask the previous catgirls if they ever left their floor, but I don¡¯t think they did. Just on the basis that they were home when we showed up. I mean, if anyone had shown up to our floor a week earlier than we¡¯d expected, we would have been with the kobolds. There¡¯s a chance we wouldn¡¯t have even known someone was there. But nope, everyone¡¯s been where they¡¯re ¡°supposed to be¡±. That seems really boring. Anyways, the triplets told us all about what to expect going down, so there won¡¯t really be any surprises unless the Admin changed something. Which I don¡¯t think he would have. I kinda want to spend an afternoon here having tea with Jenny tho. Maybe next cycle. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (9) Dear Diary, We¡¯re on Floor 75 now, the last catgirl floor before ours. The floors are getting harder to beat, and I never really realized how much thinking went into being a player. I mean, sure, we used strategy to get through floors before, but eeeevery floor is different! Like, one floor will have wolves and bats in a forest, then another has dire wolves and bats in a forest, then another will have dire wolves and spiders. So even though it¡¯s similar, it¡¯s never the same. And every little detail makes things harder to get through. And since we aren¡¯t facing the same creatures over and over, we can¡¯t just spend three days feeding them before they let us through. We have to actually fight them. Which kinda sucks. Anyways, I didn¡¯t write last night, sorry. There wasn¡¯t too much new, and I was tired. We got here super late tonight, since we knew where the catgirl floor was, and just pushed through until we got here. We¡¯re gonna sleep in tomorrow and wait for Aya and Lilly to get here. And the people they¡¯re with. Oh, when we got here, the catgirls were building a kind of dollhouse for ants. A really big, complicated dollhouse. With like lights and plumbing and stuff. It was super cute but also kinda weird. So we asked why they were making it, and they were like ¡°well, what do you do all day??¡± So we told them all about our marble races, and they called marble racing weird! Can you believe that?? I mean, marble racing is totally a normal sport! Plenty of people race marbles! The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It kinda seems like all the catgirl floors have their own obsession tho. We had our marbles, and we¡¯re kinda obsessed with them. Well, ok, a lot obsessed with them. Gigi and the rest of Floor 60 is obsessed with a flock of ducks that live there. Like, their whole lives revolve around making the ducks happy. And then here they make dollhouses and get ants to live in them. They didn¡¯t show us, but I¡¯m pretty sure they have a whole mini town somewhere. I think they started building the houses first, then put ants in them, but I¡¯m not sure. Anyways, we might have a marble race tomorrow if Aya and Lilly take too long to get here. Just to prove it isn¡¯t weird. And to show how fun it is. Well, Y said we should have a party, since we¡¯re almost home. I guess you can take the kobold out of the party, but not the party out of the kobold. Even though he isn¡¯t a kobold any more. But tonight we were all too tired to think about throwing a party tomorrow. It would be fun though. I mean, I want to get home. But having a day to relax would be super nice. And it¡¯s not like the cycle will end before we get to our floor. Probably. ¡­Probably. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (10) Dear Diary, We¡¯re home!!! Finally!!!!! It took a few day longer than we thought it would, so we kinda just kept fighting until we were all about to drop from exhaustion. At least we got through the last couple floors pretty easy, since we¡¯re friends with the creatures on a couple floors. I¡¯m still pretty exhausted, but I don¡¯t want to sleep until it gets dark. Which should be in liiiiike¡­ half an hour? I just need to keep writing until I can go to sleep! Should be easy, right? Riiiiight? Lilly and Staab aren¡¯t here yet. When we passed through Floor 92, the ghosts and hobgoblins- Oh! I finally know the difference between a goblin and a hobgoblin! Hobgoblins are human-sized and red, while goblins are kobold-sized and green! Other than that they look pretty similar. But since goblins are smaller, their attacks aren¡¯t very strong. The siren that replaced Via on her old floor used to be a goblin. What was I talking about? Oh, right. The hobgoblins and ghosts on Staab¡¯s old floor were like ¡°wow, you¡¯re players now?? What the heck happened and where¡¯s Staab?¡± So we explained that since we¡¯ve been onto Floor 100, we got counted as players this cycle. They acted calm, but I get the feeling they thought that was suuuuper unfair, and I¡¯m kinda worried they¡¯re mad at Staab. I¡¯m worried about what they¡¯ll do, or try to do. I mean, Staab and Lilly will be pretty high-level players by the time they get there, but the hobgoblins might still try something. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I get the feeling they don¡¯t like that Staab has, like, a life. While they¡¯re stuck just being NPC¡¯s. But like, they chose to be NPC¡¯s. When Staab started coming down here, he asked if they wanted to come with him. But they all said no, they said they didn¡¯t want to leave their floor. Which, I understand the whole ¡°we have to stay here¡± feeling. I got it too. But when Staab left and started hanging out here all the time and nothing bad happened (except when we pushed the button, but even that didn¡¯t stay that way long), they should have seen that and thought ¡°hey, maybe going down one floor to check out the shops could be fun!¡±. But they Never. Left. And when Kimi got keys in her inventory, and the Kobolds started wandering around the dungeon like they owned the place, the ghosts and hobgoblins could have changed their minds about leaving their floor then. But nope. Heck, even the air elementals passed through their floor a couple times, when the kobolds wanted to play sports with them. So there¡¯s really no excuse. Oh! All my stuff is where I left it! I was kinda worried about that. Mika and Lilly were kinda worried we¡¯d been replaced, but come on. The Admin is too lazy to do that. We¡¯ll be here when the ¡°real¡± players get here, so it won¡¯t ever be an issue. Well, Y might be an issue, since he doesn¡¯t have a shop. So the players will for sure notice him. Unless he takes over Aya¡¯s shop. He knows everything about the floors below us anyways, so it shouldn¡¯t be a problem. Ok hekkin¡¯ finally it¡¯s dark! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (11) Dear Diary, We were going to visit the kobolds today, but decided to wait till tomorrow so Lilly and Aya could be with us. But since our sending stones are still here, I was able to talk with Nat and Gin, and Mika and Via were able to talk to their band. So tomorrow when we go down there¡¯s going to be a party. I know sometimes Kobolds take any excuse to party, but I agree with this one. I¡¯m ready for a party. I feel like we did a good job, making it all the way through the dungeon, and I¡¯m ready to celebrate. And for once, for once, I won¡¯t have to do any cooking for the party!!! I¡­ actually feel kinda sad about that. I like cooking. But I know Nat and Gin have everything handled. I can¡¯t wait to get back down to them and start cooking again, tho. I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯re gonna spend a day or two on the kobold¡¯s floor, in our house there. I missed my bed, but I¡¯ll admit there¡¯s more fun stuff to do on the kobold¡¯s floor. And the wolves are there! I missed Best Girl Siri and all the other dire wolves! I know I have my little spooder pet now, but it isn¡¯t the same. I think it¡¯s kinda like if someone had a pet ferret and a tank of fish. You love both of them, but one is much more¡­ dynamic. The other is basically a really cool living decoration. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Oh, speaking of pets! Via went to visit the dracoraptors today. They attacked her, but when she went up the second time they were super nice and loving. Like they missed her. So that was sweet. She said one of them had a bead bracelet it was playing with. We¡¯re the first people down here, so she doesn¡¯t know where it came from. I don¡¯t know either. Apparently it acted threatening when she tried to take it, and she didn¡¯t want her arm ripped off again, so she left it. When we passed through that floor on our way here I didn¡¯t see it. Well, ok, we kinda teleported over the floor. Since we were so close to home, and we know we can beat the floor. I just teleported everyone once, which let us skip like 80% of the floor, and we didn¡¯t see the raptors. Via was sad about that, but no one else wanted to walk all the way through. Oh, Aya and the triplets got here a little before noon. Staab and Lilly- Lily came in a couple hours later. I was right, the ghosts and hobgoblins tried something mean. I don¡¯t know what, but Lily is super mad about it. She says next cycle she¡¯s going to study pink spells, so charm spells, and I¡¯m pretty sure she plans to destroy them. I¡¯d be worried about them if I didn¡¯t think they probably deserve it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (12) Dear Diary, Yep, the kobolds know how to party. Today was epic. They dressed up the wolves in suits and bow ties, which was just the most adorable thing ever, and we had a formal party. Whiiiiich turned informal at like three in the afternoon, when the guy who¡¯s really good at drumming took over the band. Oh, Lewis also had a bow tie and top hat on. The kobolds made him a legit, dragon-sized black top hat, and he looked very dashing. I thought he needed a monocle, but he said that if he wore a monocle then someone else would insist on a mustache, and then where would it end? I get his point. I still wanted him to wear a monocle tho. Staab and Lilly being elves got some attention, but not much. Y being a catboi got a lot more attention, and everyone said Kimi should have become a kobold instead. They both were very against that idea. The triplets got some attention, but more because they couldn¡¯t communicate as ants, and everyone wanted to know what being a hive mind was like. I¡¯ll admit, I like them better than I did before. I didn¡¯t really talk to them, and they didn¡¯t talk to anyone but Aya. But with a bunch of kobolds around, asking all kinds of random questions, yeah I just needed to get to know them. And they did go from being in control of a bunch of separate entities to being their own individual person, which must have screwed with their brains. No wonder they¡¯re kinda weird. But they¡¯re less weird than they were at the beginning of the cycle. Like they¡¯ve figured things out a little. People are always less weird when they aren¡¯t going through some kind of existential crisis. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. So yeah, today was fun. Tomorrow we¡¯re just gonna hang out and do our own things, but the day after tomorrow¡­ We¡¯re going to take a vote on if we should push the button or not. If we do, then we all have to do it. That¡¯s 22 button pushes taken away from ¡°real¡± players. We still don¡¯t know what the point of all this is. It must be pretty important, or the players would get bored and not bother fighting all the time. And we used to be monsters and NPC¡¯s, so we know we could survive like that again. But then, we don¡¯t know if the players that got¡­ erased? ¡­turned into NPC¡¯s or if they just don¡¯t exist any more. So we don¡¯t know what will happen if we don¡¯t push the button. But then, we don¡¯t know what will happen if we do. It¡¯s something to think about, for sure. I guess¡­ I guess we could ask the Admin about it? Maybe? But I don¡¯t want to be the one to write that letter. I think there¡¯s still an NPC part of me that¡¯s just really afraid to ask what all this is about, or how we got here. Maybe Lilly or Aya would be more comfortable asking, but I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯ll bring it up day after tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 40 (13) Dear Diary, Well, we didn¡¯t reach an agreement. The majority want to push the button, but the minority all make really good points about why we shouldn¡¯t. So we decided that my group will go push the button tomorrow while everyone else figures out what to ask the Admin. Meaning I don¡¯t have to write any awkward letters! Yay! Well, I will write a letter, but to ask the Admin if I can be silver for a cycle. Lilly said next cycle she¡¯s going to be pink, and then Mika and Kimi said they were going to switch colors. Because we¡¯re players now, we can be any color we want! So Aya said she was going to try black, and Via and I decided to switch colors. Except Y said silver wasn¡¯t a color he could choose, so he didn¡¯t know if I could become silver. So tomorrow morning I¡¯m gonna write and ask if I can be silver. But that¡¯s not awkward or anything, it¡¯ll be easy. Oh yeah, I didn¡¯t write in here yesterday because I ate too much food at dinner and basically went into a food coma as soon as I got home. All I did all day was cook with Nat and Gin and Mar, and we had a great time. I gave them the cookbook I got from the other catgirl, and they promised to write their own cookbook. I¡¯m gonna put a sending stone in my inventory, and hopefully when the cycle resets it¡¯ll still be there so I can talk to Nat. If it isn¡¯t, I¡¯ll be sad. ¡­I won¡¯t be too surprised, but I¡¯ll be sad. Actually, I might as well write the Admin now and ask if I can be silver next cycle. Yeah, I¡¯ll do that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
..... The Admin watched players fight their way through the dungeon. He kept notes on everyone¡¯s tactics; on who played best and smartest. There were two groups he had high hopes for, as well as a few solo players. He wondered if he should suggest the solo players team up for a cycle, just to see how they did. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the notification icon blink. Someone had sent him a message. He stretched, yawning before opening the message.
Hey Admin! Soooo next cycle Via and I were gonna switch colors, but she¡¯s silver, and Y said that silver wasn¡¯t an available color for players to get. Can I get it for just one cycle and then switch back? Pleeeeease? XD Nikki ^.^ P.S. I¡¯m the diner owner on Floor 93. And a player now.
The Admin smiled slightly at the post script. He found it amusing she thought, after all the hell those catgirls had sent him through, he wasn¡¯t fully aware of who they all were. For half a second he almost explained that silver was a special color, reserved for players who did exceptional things. And then he realized she wouldn¡¯t care. She had no notion of what this was, of why players were even a thing. The Admins hadn¡¯t bothered telling non-players why the dungeons had been created. More than that; it hadn¡¯t been allowed. Talking to the NPC¡¯s at all was taboo. And if anyone found out a group of them were players now, that they were doing fairly well, that they ran the dungeon more than he did¡­ How far would the consequences go? He absently pulled an iced coffee out of his inventory and held it in both hands, tapping his teeth on the cup rim. What if¡­ What if he gave them power? The group was chaotic and insane, the bane of his existence, but inventive and determined. They weren¡¯t gamers. They didn¡¯t understand or care about systems, algorithms, min-maxing or grinding. They did things so completely wrong that it circled around to being right. They¡¯d innocently and completely unintentionally ruined everything a number of times, all in the name of fun and making friends. If they¡¯d managed it in his dungeon, what could they do outside of it? The Admin set his cup down, telling the System to allow Nikki access to silver magic. And then he summoned Aya and Kimi to the Void. Cycle 41 (1) Dear Diary, Guess who isn¡¯t the green catgirl any more? Me! I¡¯m silver now! And Via is the green one! ¡­I¡¯m not gonna lie, it feels weird. It¡¯ll take a while for me to get used to my tail being, well, kinda grey. Via¡¯s green isn¡¯t the same green as I was, it¡¯s more mint? I don¡¯t know color names real well, Mika is the one who knows, but I think Via is mint. While I was always a solid dark green. Well, my hair and ears and tail, at least. Not my whole body, that might have been too weird. Lilly is- Lily is pink, and it¡¯s cute. I don¡¯t think Staab likes it too much, tho. It¡¯s really bright, while her purple was kinda dark and muted. Oh well, he¡¯ll get used to it. Aya chose black as her color, but her tail and ears are white now. Like a reverse siamese cat. It¡¯s cute, everyone loves it. Y is black too, but his ears and tail didn¡¯t change to white. We don¡¯t know why, and that annoys him. Aaaand lastly, Kimi is blue and Mika is red. Mika looks super cool, she¡¯ll do a great job setting things on fire. I think Kimi will need a couple days to get used to freezing things, tho. She already misses her teleport spell a lot. Oh yeah, this cycle Kimi and Y are their own team, and Staab and Lily are with us. Aya is still with the triplets. I don¡¯t mind that as much as I did last cycle, but it still bugs me a teeny bit. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Kimi was really quiet yesterday when we went to Floor 100. I think she and Y might have argued about something. Well, serious-argued, not fun-argued, which they do all the time. She looked worried about something. But then everything reset, and it was morning again, and she and Y made their team like they¡¯d planned. So I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s just drama, and I don¡¯t like drama. With everyone¡¯s magic being switched around, it might be harder to get through the dungeon. I mean, I¡¯ve still got all my green spells at stupid high levels, but with silver magic they aren¡¯t as effective. Well, the first ten floors were still super easy to get through, because we are kinda OP. But we might start having problems getting through closer to Floor 50. I kinda want to try giving food to everyone, and asking politely if they¡¯ll let us through without fighting next time. Via thinks it¡¯s a great idea, and Lilly isn¡¯t opposed to trying, but everyone else thinks it¡¯s dumb. I¡¯m like, it wouldn¡¯t hurt to try! And besides, a lot of the people only fight because it¡¯s expected! They don¡¯t want to fight! Like the kobolds. I mean, the goblins on Floor 8 were like ¡°oh, you again¡± and barely even tried to kill us! And we waltzed right through! Well, ok, we conga¡¯d through, since conga is easier to do without music. But same difference. So next cycle I want to give them a cake or ice cream or something to show I appreciate them not bothering to murder us. And if we make a deal with them, why not with others? I need to make a list of things I can pull out of my inventory at a moment¡¯s notice¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (2) Dear Diary, Yeah, things are getting harder to fight. We really need to stick to our original colors. Mika said she¡¯s gonna write the Admin and ask if she can just be all the colors next cycle, since she¡¯s an artist and appreciates all of them. And also cuz rainbow hair is really cool. I don¡¯t think the Admin will allow rainbow hair, but there are two colors labeled ¡°blue¡± in the magic list, he might let her be both of those. The light blue (what Mika had before) is more ice/cold/attack magic, while dark blue is more water/healing magic. I don¡¯t know why the difference exists, but Mika said there are two words in Spanish that translate to ¡°blue¡±, so maybe the Admin originally wrote the magic system in Spanish? I don¡¯t know. Languages are weird. Anyways, next cycle Via and I are going to try a pacifist run. I¡¯m gonna feed everyone on every single floor, and see if they¡¯ll agree to not attack us the cycle after that. I¡¯ll have to spend a while in some catgirl¡¯s kitchen, making cakes and cookies and pizzas, but I don¡¯t mind that! And Via said she¡¯ll help. All she has is sushi, which I have too, but I¡¯m sure some people will want sushi. I¡¯m gonna make up a menu and give it to people so they can decide what they want. And I¡¯ll make meatballs for the wolves and things. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I¡¯ll also make ranch balls to kill slimes, because I don¡¯t like slimes. I¡¯m sorry, I know I¡¯ve said I want to be friends with everyone and everything, but not the slimes. Never the slimes. Oh yeah! The sending stone, to talk to Nat! I don¡¯t have it any more. Which is very sad. But like I said, I¡¯m not surprised. I don¡¯t know why my diary stayed here while the stone didn¡¯t, tho. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a reason, but I don¡¯t know what it is. Well, by the time we get down there, Nat and Gin will have the cookbook written out, and hopefully a cookbook will stay in my inventory when the cycle resets. Altho maybe only things I had in my inventory during Cycle 39 will stay with me? That¡¯s what Lilly thinks. But Kimi says it probably has more to do with being magical or not magical. So as long as the cookbook is completely unmagical it¡¯ll stay. We¡¯ll find out next cycle, I guess. Anyways, I¡¯d better get to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (3) Aya sat down at the Floor 28 diner, absently running her fingers through her hair. Everyone was there, eating and chatting. She glanced at Kimi, who deliberately looked away. They hadn¡¯t talked since the cycle began. They hadn¡¯t had an opportunity to. Aya wanted to talk to Kimi alone, but that was taking too long. Things had to be discussed. Aya cleared her throat. ¡°Gir-¡° ¡°Via, what floors were the dinosaurs in?¡± Kimi asked, just a bit too loudly. Y noticed, looked at Aya, and frowned at Kimi as Via answered. He knew. ¡°Girls,¡± Aya repeated. ¡°Remember the letter we sent the Admin?¡± The group instantly quieted down, looking at her. Kimi glared at her drink. ¡°Did he write you back?¡± Lily asked. ¡°No,¡± Aya said. ¡°He spoke to Kimi and me directly.¡± Again, silence. The group glanced at Kimi, who was looking at the drink like it had kicked her puppy. ¡°Directly?¡± Nikki finally repeated. Aya nodded. ¡°He wants us to win.¡± ¡°We can do that,¡± Mika said. ¡°Yeah, we can, but he wants us to win wrong,¡± Kimi snapped. ¡°We aren¡¯t players. We were never meant to be. We don¡¯t do things players do, so he wants us to be as un-playerlike as possible! We screwed things up for him, so he wants us to screw things up for everyone else.¡± Aya flinched. ¡°That¡¯s not quite how he put-¡° A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°It¡¯s what he meant!¡± Kimi yelled. ¡°Wait, ¡®everyone else¡¯?¡± Staab asked. ¡°Who¡¯s ¡®everyone else¡¯?¡± ¡°There are other dungeons,¡± Aya said calmly. ¡°After a hundred cycles, the best players from each dungeon will be sent to a Master Dungeon to figure out which dungeon creates the best players. The Admin, our admin, wants us to¡­¡± ¡°Break everything,¡± Kimi supplied. She rolled her eyes. ¡°He wants us to prove that the dungeon system thing as a whole is stupid.¡± Again, a pause as everyone let that sink in. Via raised her hand. ¡°So, the Admin isn¡¯t really in charge?¡± Aya and Kimi shared a glance. It felt sacreligious to say. ¡°Well¡­¡± ¡°No.¡± ***** Dear DairyDiary, Heck, I spelled diary wrong. Dairy is just way too close to diary. I hope I haven¡¯t mixed those two words up before, but I probably have. Oh well. It¡¯s not that big of a deal. The Ad We¡¯re getting better at fighting with our new colors. I miss green, though. Mika and Lily (I spelled it right first time!) keep messing up and trying to use their old spells instead of the ones they have now. Mika keeps trying to cast Ice Volley, and all that appears is a cloud of mildly cold air, while Lily goes for a psychic attack aaaand then remembers she¡¯s got charm magic this cycle, not psychic. No one has died yet, but we¡¯ve gotten really really close a couple times. I think Aya¡¯s adjusting to being black instead of yellow pretty good. As a group she and the triplets are almost doing better than we are. Kimi and Y are lagging behind a bit, but not too much. I suspect Kimi is the same as Mika, trying to use the wrong set of spells. Via¡¯s doing pretty good, though. I¡¯m glad we switched, so she still has a couple good support spells, instead of having to learn attack spells. And silver magic is cool! It¡¯s strong, even though I don¡¯t have stupidly high levels in any of the spells. I¡¯m going back to green next cycle, but I might try silver again some day. Anyways, it¡¯s been a long day. I¡¯m tired. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 41 (4) Dear Diary, I haven¡¯t written in a couple days, sorry. We¡¯re back on the floor with Gigi, so that¡¯s fun. Tomorrow we¡¯re going to have a formal tea party with Painbringer the Gold, otherwise known as Jenny. She lives on Floor 61 with a bunch of wyverns, but they aren¡¯t like kobolds. She says they used to be crows or something; they¡¯re very sweet and loving to her, and they have their home, but they aren¡¯t people. They don¡¯t talk to her. Which, that sounds super lonely. I¡¯m glad she got a key and can move around now. The ones setting everything up are me (cuz I make all the food), Y and Lily. Y has a lot of experience with parties from spending all that time as a kobold, and Lilly is the most¡­ elegant? Out of us. She knows what fancy tea parties are supposed to look like, and how everyone is supposed to dress and stuff. Mika wants to make a formal tea gown for Jenny. The catgirls here thought that would take too long, but Via said it was totally possible. Turns out, Via knows how to sew fancy dresses! Which makes sense, since she always wore clothes that were frilly and stuff. Like, more frilly than what any of us had access to. She had clothes that were too cute for the Admin to have come up with them. Altho, maybe he didn¡¯t come up with them. Because the first couple cycles all we had access to was, like, jeans, hoodies, and maid outfits. It wasn¡¯t the biggest variety in the world. And then on cycle¡­ 6? 7? we suddenly got a whole lot more clothes in a way bigger variety. So maybe he took clothes from someone else. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡­ Yeah, so, there¡¯s another reason I haven¡¯t written in a while. I was processing¡­ stuff. The Admin isn¡¯t The Admin, he¡¯s just An Admin. Apparently there are a couple of them, all with their own dungeons. They have to find the best players in their dungeons, and then those players will compete. Which sounds kinda dumb. The Admin thinks it¡¯s kinda dumb too, so he wants us to ruin everything. Kinda. It¡¯s more complicated than that. Like, way more complicated. And what are they all competing for? ¡­Well, officially it¡¯s to see who goes where when the competition is over. But the real reason¡­ is just to waste time. It, umm, something happened. Something big. Something bad. Lots of people and animals died at once. More than anyone was prepared for. They needed some way to stall for time while sorting everything, and¡­ this is what they came up with. There are problems, and it¡¯s not fair, but life isn¡¯t always fair. Or, I guess death isn¡¯t always fair. Afterlife? I don¡¯t know, it¡¯s complicated. But basically, we aren¡¯t players. We don¡¯t know what to do, so we do things that are unpredictable. And the Admin, our Admin, wants us to go be the best players for him. I don¡¯t know if I can be the best, but if he wants our group to spread chaos, that we can do! Agents of Chaos, Go! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (5) Dear Diary, The tea party was super fun! Via and the Floor 60 catgirls made a dress for Jenny, who absolutely loved it. Staab suggested making a suit for Lewis, but we all think he¡¯d rather die than wear a suit. And then Jenny asked who Lewis was, and we told her he was Bonecrusher the Black, the dragon on Floor 97. She wants to meet him now. But Lewis will never leave his floor, and Jenny can¡¯t go far from Floor 61, so we¡¯ll never know if they were destined to be soulmates. Very sad. Anyways, for the party all the girls wore dresses and the guys wore suits. Staab cleans up nice, but Y looks better in a suit. And Peter, the catboi triplet, he still looks like he doesn¡¯t really know how limbs work. His sisters have it figured out. Oh, Paola (Peter¡¯s twin) said she wouldn¡¯t be caught dead in a dress, so she was in a suit, too. But it was a magenta suit, so that¡¯s something. She¡¯s funny, I like her. Oh! We decided, no matter what, we¡¯re gonna have a marble race this cycle. And to do that, we¡¯re going to use marbles we got ourselves! There are a couple floors with ants, and when individual ants die they drop marbles. The triplets said ants don¡¯t really feel pain when they die, so we can kill them as much as we want without feeling bad. I already have thirty-one marbles that I got myself. At first Via didn¡¯t want to kill ants herself, but Lilly pointed out that the ants were going to die anyways, so what was the point in being a pacifist? Besides, they¡¯re a hive mind. As long as one ant is still alive, the hive isn¡¯t dead. And the triplets said, like I just mentioned, killing individual ants doesn¡¯t cause them pain. So it¡¯s totally fine. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I think Via only killed four ants, since our marble teams only consist of four marbles. Which, that seems like bad strategy. The more marbles you have, the greater your chance of finding a super fast team. But Via just muttered something about how they¡¯re just marbles, they aren¡¯t alive or anything, and statistically any marble should do just as good as any other marble. Which I understand. But it still feels like a dumb thing to do. Mika has started drawing all the monsters and NPC¡¯s in the dungeon, and writing like an encyclopedia type thing. She¡¯s still super thrilled about having pens and pencils in different colors. I think, if given the chance, she¡¯d spend a whole cycle just sitting somewhere and drawing. Well, this cycle we¡¯re going to get to our floor and stop there, not push the button, to let the real players press the button and not think there¡¯s a glitch or something. So Mika will have a week to sit and draw if she wants. We decided our groups are going to push the button every other cycle. It¡¯ll take four cycles of button pushing for all of us to have the minimum limit of two button pushes each, but we have twenty cycles to do that in. So we aren¡¯t worried. Or at least we presume we have twenty cycles. Maybe we should ask about that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (6) Dear Diary, Floor 69 is¡­ weird. There are catgirls, in maid outfits, but they¡¯re golems. I think these were originally cats, not girls. Anyways, they explode when you touch them. They have a crystal thing in their neck, like all the other golems do, and if you take it out they just collapse into mud. The catgirl in charge of the other catgirls is a person. He said he used to be a player, but became an NPC cuz he did too bad a job. So the Admin asked where he wanted to go, and he got sent to Floor 69. Which, if given an option, I think I¡¯d rather be sent to a floor where I knew what it was like. I mean, I think I kinda got the jackpot being sent to Floor 93. If we¡¯d been in the middle, we wouldn¡¯t have had as much time to ourselves. And if we¡¯d been near the top, we wouldn¡¯t have been able to hit the button. So I¡¯m super glad I got put where I was. But if I had to change, or if I had to when I was still an NPC, I think I would have asked to become a Floor 97 kobold. Just cuz I know what they¡¯re like. And if that wasn¡¯t possible I¡¯d ask to NOT be a Floor 99 yeti. Cuz they¡¯re weird. So yeah, the catgirl golem guy should have asked to be on a floor he¡¯d been to, and not asked to be there based on what the internet thinks a nice number is. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. But anyways, he seems pretty content as he is. And he says herding cats is fun, and that exploding is surprisingly relaxing. He said when he explodes it¡¯s like when you pop your knuckles. Like whatever was out of place or stiff just gets super stretched out, then put back in place. Mika wanted to be exploded to try, but we decided that being made out of porcelain probably changes how being exploded feels. I¡¯ve never died by being exploded. But I imagine it would feel kinda the same as dying by being ripped apart by pterodactyls. Same basic principle, right? Only faster. Maybe that, combined with being dissolved by a fire-magic slime. Except from the inside out, not the outside in. Anyways, we¡¯re on Floor 75 now, with the catgirls here. I think last cycle they didn¡¯t really believe we were players, and thought our passing through was a fluke. This time they believe us, but are kinda¡­ worried? Like they don¡¯t know how to treat us. I don¡¯t know. It feels kinda weird. I get that there¡¯s always been a distinction between player and NPC, and we break that line. We aren¡¯t really either. So it makes sense some people wouldn¡¯t know how to treat us. But it makes me self-conscious when they treat us super different. Anyways, I can¡¯t wait to be home in a day or two. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 41 (7) The hobgoblins grinned, watching two people walk through the entrance. One frowned. ¡°Her hair is pink now.¡± The others looked at him. ¡°So?¡± He couldn¡¯t put his finger on why her hair color bothered him, so he shrugged and followed them down the volcano. They got to the bridge over a river of lava and waited, hiding behind the columns that held it up. Soon Staab and Lily crossed, Staab trailing behind his girlfriend. As soon as she stepped off the bridge, the hobgoblins attacked. ¡°Stop.¡± The word crashed over them, forcing their muscles to obey. As a group they froze, hands outstretched to grab her. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said sweetly, pulling a wand with a pink stone at the end out of her pocket. The stone started to glow as she twirled it in her fingers. ¡°Follow me, please.¡± They had no choice. Magic took over, and they followed her to the edge of the lava. ¡°Step in,¡± she ordered, all sweetness gone from her voice. The hobgoblins fought it. They knew they were resistant to heat and fire, but not that much. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The pink glow brightened. ¡°Step. In.¡± From the bridge, Staab watched as the hobgoblins put their feet in the river of lava. They were men. They were fighters. They could handle a little pain. ¡°Thank you,¡± Lily said. ¡°Now, turn to face me.¡± They did as ordered, no longer resisting. With every passing heartbeat they felt more of their flesh boil and burn away. Even with resistance, after half a minute their feet and ankles would be nothing but charred bone. Lily smiled. ¡°Good. You will stand there, and I will explain the importance of respect.¡± ***** Dear Diary, We¡¯re back home! Marble race prelims have started! Out of the 42 marbles I got in the dungeon this cycle, I think three are gonna do super good. And one mediocre one, cuz having a full team of super fast marbles is too much to ask for. Except, since there are 11 of us racing, I think we¡¯re either gonna go back to everyone using one marble, or else two marbles. Cuz 44 marbles on a track is¡­ a lot. Yeah, the triplets are joining this cycle. They haven¡¯t before, and I don¡¯t think they¡¯re particularly interested in marble races (weird, right?), but Aya said she¡¯s going to announce for our games no matter what. So they can do their own thing, all alone, or join everyone else by the marble tracks. Anyways, I¡¯m glad to be back home. I kinda feel sad for all the other players, who don¡¯t have real ¡°homes¡± to go back to. I¡¯m sure they have floors they like more than others, and being able to explore is nice, but there¡¯s something about being in MY house with MY bed and MY kitchen. And speaking of MY kitchen, I need to make a bunch of ice cream cakes for tomorrow. We haven¡¯t gone down to the kobolds yet, but they know we¡¯re here cuz I spoke to Nat and Gin. So yep, party tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (8) Dear Diary, So, apparently, the yetis have been going up through the dungeon, telling everyone to stick to their own floors. And that traveling between floors is ¡°against the Admin¡¯s will¡±. Which, well ok, it was, but he¡¯s given up caring at this point. But still!!! Who do they think they are, telling us what to do?! Lewis heard them out, said they weren¡¯t wrong, but counterargument: and then he one-shot KO¡¯d them. The yetis didn¡¯t try talking to the kobolds again, but they passed through a couple times going up, so I think they might eventually get to the hobgoblins (who have never left their floor anyway) and the air elementals (who will tell them to chill) (and then snicker at their pun). Lily and Mika want to go down and summon the Admin to tell them to stop meddling. Kimi and I think that¡¯d be funny, but the Admin wouldn¡¯t do it. Aya and Via say we should just leave them alone to be weird. Oh! Lily and Staab are going to try being every race available. Staab hasn¡¯t been a catbo- neko yet, so next cycle he¡¯ll be one of those. And Lily (I¡¯ve been spelling her name right this whole time, woo!)¡­ heck, I forgot what I was going to say about Lily. Wait, it was about color. Lily said she¡¯s gonna go back to being purple again. Pink is fun and cute, but it doesn¡¯t really match her skin tone. She looks better with darker hair. Of course, some creatures don¡¯t change color depending on what magic color you use, so she might go back to pink if she¡¯s ever one of those creatures, but for the moment she wants to be purple. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Anyways, I¡¯ll have to make a list of available races next cycle to see what all they¡¯ll be turning in to. I don¡¯t really want to be anything other than a catgirl, but the otterkin are super cute. And the fairies. And being a half-dragon would be super fun¡­ Maybe at some point I¡¯ll change, but I like being a catgirl. Oh, the party was epic! Mika and Via¡¯s band have been practicing a couple new serious songs, and they played them. They¡¯re slow, sad songs, and I think everyone cried. It was amazing and really cathartic. The songs kinda reminded me of¡­ before. Of my family, back when I was human. I haven¡¯t thought of them in forever, but those songs just brought out all the feels and memories. And then we all had ice cream cake. Because we can¡¯t stay sad forever. I think Mika is going to ask the Admin for a way to record and play music. That¡¯d be nice, especially for her and Via. Some people just live for music. Kinda like how I live for cooking. Not being able to listen to music whenever we want has been hard, but especially for Mika. And I know that if the band played those songs into a recorder, eeeeeveryone would want a copy of it. Of course, at this point if the band played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star into a recording device, everyone would want a copy. Cuz that¡¯s how starved for music we all are here. Hopefully the Admin gives us something for that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (9) Dear Diary, The first official marble race was today!!! We decided to go back to everyone using one marble, and my marble (Mimi) won silver! Y won gold, and Aya won bronze. Yes, I¡¯m sad I didn¡¯t get gold, but like I¡¯ve said before, you don¡¯t have to be the best as long as you¡¯re consistently ok. Starting off at silver is good. Hopefully Mimi will be able to keep it up. I don¡¯t want to put unfair pressure on him, especially since in prelims I raced them with the idea that they¡¯d be in a group of four. But I really hope he keeps getting medals. I haven¡¯t really talked about my spider a lot. Professor Plum is a good little spooder, but he isn¡¯t really all that¡­ exciting. I like being able to climb up walls, but having a ¡°pet¡± isn¡¯t the same as a real animal. Like the dire wolves. And I know this spider will act the same as every other spider pet in the dungeon. I get what the kobolds were talking about, back when pets were first introduced. Some were pet purists, who thought we shouldn¡¯t have player pets cuz they aren¡¯t really real. But I don¡¯t know how to- OH MY GOSH I JUST HAD THE BEST IDEA EVER!!! Ok so, on Floor 7 there are a bunch of animals. There are tigers and owls and wolves. I¡¯m gonna kidnap a wolf. I¡¯m totally gonna have a wolf as a pet. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Althooooo¡­ On Floor 17 there are dinosaurs. There are little velociraptors, and Via wanted to keep one. Maybe kidnapping two velociraptors would be better than kidnapping a wolf and a velociraptor. Or two wolves. I¡¯ll ask Via what she wants to do, which one she wants to kidnap. I¡¯m pretty sure I could get two raptors to follow us. I know I could get two wolves to follow us around, cuz it happened with the dire wolves without my even trying. But dinosaurs are different. I think the dracoraptors used to be some kind of raccoon? Maybe? But the little velociraptors might be different. So I don¡¯t know what to feed them. Via might have some ideas, and meatballs are a universal favorite. Actually, we might spend the whole day with the dinosaurs, to figure out what they like to eat. There are a lot of them on that floor, and it would be rude to not bring food for all of them, so I¡¯ll have to cook before then. I¡¯ll have to ask the Floor 14 catgirls if I can borrow their diner for a bit. I might need to make pancakes, too, since there are a couple herbivores there. Or just normal cakes? I¡¯m so used to feeding carnivores that I don¡¯t really know what to do with herbivores now. Maybe they like pasta? I don¡¯t want to just make a salad, that seems like cheating. Unless I made a really, really nice salad. I know, I¡¯ll ask Nat and Mar what vegetarian dish I should make for dinosaurs. I¡¯d ask Gin, but she¡¯d probably tell me to make something that would instantly give the dinosaurs clogged arteries. Time to research! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (10) Dear Diary, The yetis came by today. They tried telling us we weren¡¯t really players and should stop pretending. We were mostly like ¡°well you should mind your own business¡±. Except Lily, who charmed them into thinking they were sentient rocks. ¡­They¡¯re still sitting in the plaza, not moving because rocks aren¡¯t supposed to move. Kimi is suddenly very interested in charm magic, but Y (and everyone else) is worried what she¡¯d do with it. Her imagination is too dangerous. If she got her hands on charm magic, I¡¯d give it a week before she controlled everyone in the whole dungeon. Having charm magic sounds fun, but I think I¡¯ll stick to green. And silver sometimes. I think it¡¯s better to be really, really good at one or two things than to just be ok at all of them. And with magic, something that helps save our lives, it¡¯s important to be really really good at it. Oh, I talked to Via about stealing wolves and velociraptors, and she thinks it¡¯s a great idea! She says we should try to make friends with both creatures, in case one of them doesn¡¯t like us. Which makes sense. But I¡¯m surprised she suggested it, and didn¡¯t suggest we make the giant spiny thing on Floor 17 our pet if the velociraptors didn¡¯t work out. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. But I¡¯m sure we can get the wolves and raptors to be our friends. I¡¯ve managed to make friends with the dracoraptors and dire wolves, and these are just smaller versions of those! Should be easy. Next cycle is gonna be fun. Nat and Gin finished the cookbook! It¡¯s a great book. Nat wrote about how to make pasta, and one of the kobolds drew diagrams of the pasta maker so any blacksmith could make it. Which I wouldn¡¯t have thought to do. Gin wrote about the importance of timing, and how ten minutes can make all the difference in the life of a Cheeto. Or, cheesy puff. Not-Cheeto. It¡¯s interesting, and has given me a couple ideas on things to try. I kinda want to have Y add in his observations on salad dressing and its effects on slimes as a¡­ epilogue? Second part? I don¡¯t know. But I feel like other people would be interested in it. And Mar made sure there was a section on meatballs and what creatures around here prefer what foods. Apparently she¡¯s been going up and feeding the sharks every day. She says they prefer uncooked things, and fish if possible. She also said they like carrots, which I wouldn¡¯t have guessed. Why would a shark like carrots? Maybe the crunch? I feel like if I weren¡¯t a player I¡¯d like to spend time figuring out what sharks like about carrots. There are a couple floors with carrots. Sharks. There are a couple floors with sharks. Well, there might be carrots growing somewhere on some floor, but I wouldn¡¯t know about it. Anyways, I should see if the sharks on other floors like carrots, too. If they do, great! If not, at least we¡¯ll have tried. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (11) Dear Diary, The marble races are progressing nicely. If Mimi wins one more race, my team is guaranteed a championship medal. Currently we¡¯re in gold in the championship, and it would be epic to win again, but there¡¯s a lot of competition. Paola, the triplet, is only like two points behind me. If she gets gold in a race where I don¡¯t get any, she¡¯ll pass me up. Staab and Mika are tied for third, so they¡¯re both super excited for the next race. The triplets didn¡¯t really want to race at first, but now they¡¯re slightly more obsessed with marble races than we are. I think having one of them be in a good position is helping. They don¡¯t really see themselves as being on different teams; as far as they¡¯re concerned, the triplets¡¯ marbles are just one big team. So as long as one of them wins, they¡¯re all happy. Which, I think that¡¯s good. It¡¯s better they all be happy and exited than just Paola being happy and the other two bored. And Aya is happy for them, too. And since Aya is happy, I¡¯m happy. I just like everyone to be happy. Anyways, the real players should be down here soon, so we¡¯ll have to pretend to be NPC¡¯s again. I kinda wonder if anyone will recognize us. I don¡¯t think they will, since players tend to ignore NPC¡¯s. Should it be NPC¡¯s, with the apostrophe, or NPCs, without one? Grammar is weird. I think there shouldn¡¯t be an apostrophe there, but oh well. I¡¯ll leave it in. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. The Admin hasn¡¯t put any new food or ingredients in my inventory, and I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s because I¡¯m a player, and players don¡¯t get food, or if it¡¯s because he just hasn¡¯t given any chefs new ingredients. I¡¯ll have to ask someone next cycle. Although, shocking as this is, I don¡¯t really feel the need for any other ingredients. I¡¯ve got a lot of things now, and haven¡¯t remembered any recipe I can¡¯t make in a while. Sure, I have to substitute some things, but it¡¯s not like I can¡¯t make it. Maybe shrimp. Having a bigger seafood variety would be nice. And not having to peel the seafood out of sushi would be great. If I could get, like, an entire albacore imported into my inventory, that¡¯d be great. And a giant octopus. Aaaaand maybe oysters. What¡¯s the difference between clams and oysters? I know oysters have pearls, but do clams? Maybe that¡¯s the difference. I wonder if there are clams in the dungeon. But they probably wouldn¡¯t be cookable. Usually whenever we kill something, it vanishes and is replaced with loot. So like the sharks just go poof, I couldn¡¯t get shark meat. Although, they don¡¯t go poof until they¡¯re actually dead. I wonder if I could get a kraken tentacle and cook that up. The kraken is big enough that just taking a little bit off a tentacle wouldn¡¯t hurt too much, right? And when we leave the floor she¡¯d heal up anyways. ¡­But if I left with the slice of kraken tentacle, would it vanish? Time to experiment! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 41 (12) The kraken woke to the sound of the gong. Her tentacles twitched, ready to attack anything that passed above. The sharks swam in lazy circles, watching, waiting. Nothing came. She was aware something was in her ocean, but nothing was passing above. Well. She was patient. She could wait. ¡°Excuse me!¡± The tiny voice came from a few feet away, on the ocean floor. She turned her great head, eye scanning the sand. On a rock stood two tailed bipeds; one with silver hair and one with blue. The silver haired one waved while the other grinned. Two tiny gold whales swam around them. ¡°Hello!¡± the silver biped said, confident she had the kraken¡¯s attention. ¡°I was wondering if you¡¯d allow me to chop a part of your tentacle off.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll grow back in an hour or so,¡± the blue one added, tightening her ponytail. ¡°No,¡± the kraken said slowly. ¡°Please?¡± the silver one asked. ¡°It won¡¯t hurt much, I promise.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Please?¡± ¡°No. Why would I allow that?¡± ¡°Because I asked nicely?¡± The blue one spoke up. ¡°And if you don¡¯t, we¡¯ll have to get it by attacking.¡± The kraken turned to face them, raising herself on her tentacles to look as big as possible. ¡°You think you could attack me and live?¡± They glanced at each other. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Yep.¡± With a screech that shook the ocean, the kraken slammed a giant tentacle on top of the bipeds. ***** Dear Diary, I met the kraken! Kimi and I went down there and used the talk with animals spell to talk to her. She¡¯s pretty nice for a giant squid. Oh, and we had to change our pets with whales, so we could breathe underwater. So Professor Plum is gone. I might not bring him back. I like having a spider pet, but I want to focus on making the wolves and velociraptors my pets. Oh, speaking of raptors, Via has kept on trying to ride the drakoraptors, and two of them let her put the saddle on now! She hasn¡¯t tried riding them yet, she wants to make sure they¡¯re used to the saddle before getting on, but she¡¯s close. Maybe next cycle she¡¯ll be able to ride into battle against the yetis on a dracoraptor. That¡¯d be epic. I wonder how that¡¯ll work, since she¡¯s a pacifist, and the raptors are¡­ well, they kill everything that moves. So maybe her riding around on a raptor won¡¯t be the best idea. It¡¯s still super cool, tho. And the yetis still think they¡¯re rocks. Lily said the spell should have worn off by now, unless they¡¯re just exceptionally dumb. Or else they like pretending to be rocks. I don¡¯t know. The yetis are weird. Oh! I was talking about the kraken! Yeah, she didn¡¯t let me cut a part of her tentacle off. She attacked, so Kimi and I fought back and cut a part off without her permission. Which, it would have been nice to get her permission, but I do see why she wouldn¡¯t want to give it. Anyways, yeah, the tentacle vanished out of my inventory as soon as I left the floor. So if I want to try cooking kraken steaks I¡¯ll have to do it on that floor. Which I¡¯m willing to do, just, maybe next cycle. The first players juuuuust got here, so I have to go pretend to be an NPC. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! I¡¯m back to green! I missed being green. Silver is nice, but it¡¯s just kinda¡­ grey. Green is way more noticeable. And all my spells are at stupid high levels with green, which is a plus. I didn¡¯t have time to write after the players came, sorry. None of them recognized us as players, but a few mentioned our hair colors got changed around. Oh, and the yetis stayed until the very end, still thinking they were rocks. The players left them alone, didn¡¯t attack them, so I guess there weren¡¯t any yetis on Floor 99. Must have made it easy to get through. Although I do wonder if Lilly broke the yetis and they permanently think they¡¯re rocks now. I guess we¡¯ll find out in a couple days. The marble races! My team won gold in the championship!!! Paola won silver, and Mika won bronze. The last race was super exciting. Y¡¯s marble was in the lead for like the first two thirds of the race, with Mimi and Aya¡¯s marble pretty close behind, then Lily¡¯s marble shot out from nowhere and passed everyone, and Mimi was about to be out of the race, then Aya and Y¡¯s marbles knocked into each other on a corner, and both fell behind! It was epic. Marble races are usually pretty exciting, but this one was one for the history books. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Anyways, this cycle it¡¯s just me and Via, trying to get through the floors without killing anything. We¡¯ve managed it so far. We¡¯ve given away a lot of sushi and ice cream. As soon as we get to the first catgirl floor I¡¯m gonna spend half a day cooking, so we¡¯ll have actual food to give people. We spent half a day on Floor 7, getting the wolves to like us. They were super suspicious at first, but by the time we left they let us pet them. Floor 8 is a ¡°boss¡± floor, full of goblins. We¡¯re staying here tonight, and I gave them all pizza. The goblins aren¡¯t as party-obsessed as the kobolds are, so there wasn¡¯t a full pizza party, but they had more of a soir¨¦e. They don¡¯t have string instruments, only drums, but eight drums makes a good band. And Via knows how to play drums, so she played a couple of her songs. It was a fun night. Oh, since we¡¯re going to take our time going through the floors, we told the other girls to wait for us on Floor 60 instead of every catgirl floor. They¡¯ll probably be there a couple days. Jenny the dragon will like that, and Gigi will be able to talk to them a little more. I got the feeling she wanted to say something to us, about her time as Dorothy, but was afraid to. If she has a couple days with the group, I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll lose her shyness. Or maybe Lily will talk to her. Either way, talking will happen. And it¡¯ll be therapeutic. Therapeutic things are good. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (Admin) The Admin watched the kobolds of Floor 16 wave good-bye to Via and Nikki. The catgirls waved back, promising to bring macaroni and cheese next cycle. Their pacifist run was going surprisingly well; only the mimic maze had given them trouble. The next floor was the dinosaur floor. He couldn¡¯t wait to see what they did there. There was a beep as someone requested to enter his space. Jumping slightly, he hit record, minimized the window and sent an invite. Admin 5 appeared. She gave a small wave, eyes going to his screens. ¡°You said you have the hive mind code ready?¡± ¡°Oh, yeah,¡± he said, pulling up his email. ¡°It¡¯s not perfect, and I have a lot of notes on what not to do, but you should figure it out.¡± ¡°Ok, thanks,¡± she said, pulling a thumb drive out of her inventory. ¡°Here¡¯s the three-cycle routine code, and the music player code.¡± ¡°Nice, thanks,¡± he said, taking it. ¡°I like sitting in my park listening to pop music,¡± she said, smiling. ¡°I imagine you¡¯re gonna take boss music to your predator-filled maze?¡± He laughed. ¡°Being chased by dinosaurs is always more fun with Hall of the Mountain King playing in the background.¡± Admin 5 shrugged slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t know that song.¡± Admin 6 hesitated. The kobolds on Floor 97 had played it so many times he¡¯d presumed everyone in the universe knew the song. It was their default song, one he¡¯d caught himself humming from time to time. The Floor 8 goblins played it on drums, and the Floor 42 mosquitoes had figured out how to buzz different notes using that very song. He glanced away, just in time to see the marker on his minimized screen go from Floor 16 to Floor 17. The catgirls were about to forcibly befriend dinosaurs. ¡°It¡¯s just a random song,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll have to send it to you.¡± ¡°Cool,¡± she said, noticing the change as well. ¡°How are your players doing?¡± ¡°Pretty good. They¡¯ve learned the ropes, so having things change each cycle should stop things from getting boring. Yours?¡± She motioned to the window marker, smiling. ¡°Let me see. Some just got to a new floor, I want to see their strategy.¡± Admin 6 panicked. He picked up his iced coffee and took a sip to hide the worried look on his face as he maximized the window. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The spinosaurus was running away in terror as a silver-haired catgirl chased him, holding arms wide. ¡°The velociraptors!¡± Nikki shouted at her, pulling a tray piled high with meatballs out of her inventory. ¡°That one¡¯s too big! Catch a velociraptor!¡± ¡°Ok!¡± Via changed direction, streaking towards the velociraptor flock. The spinosaurus kept running away. The velociraptor flock turned to Via, prepared to attack. One recognized her, and fled. Two jumped to attack, but Via caught them in a hug. Happily snuggling them as they kicked and bit, she took them to Nikki. ¡°How many are there?¡± Nikki asked, setting down the meatball tray. Via set her raptors down, pinning them lightly but firmly in place. ¡°Four. Should I get the other two?¡± ¡°Mmmmmnah, we¡¯ll start with these two. If the others see them having a good time eating, they might come over on their own.¡± ¡°Ok!¡± Admin 6 glanced over to Admin 5. She was staring at the screen with a mix of confusion and horror. ¡°What are they doing?¡± she asked. Admin 6 shrugged nervously. ¡°They¡­ didn¡¯t like the pets I got from 1, so they decided to make pets out of my velociraptors.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re allowing that?¡± He motioned to Via, happily petting the still-frightened raptors. ¡°I mean, it makes them happy.¡± ¡°Yeah, but, if they take your monsters, won¡¯t that mess things up for the other players? And what if they decide to adopt an NPC? Or one of your¡­ people monsters?¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be fine, don¡¯t worry,¡± Admin 6 said, taking another sip of iced coffee. ¡°And where the heck did she get meatballs? I don¡¯t remember spaghetti and meatballs being one of the-¡° ¡°Hey, you worry about your players, I¡¯ll worry about mine,¡± he said, cutting her off. He minimized the window again. ¡°Yeah, these girls are a bit odd, but it¡¯s fine. Don¡¯t worry about it. You wouldn¡¯t want me going to your dungeon and questioning what your players do, right?¡± ¡°¡­Yeah, you¡¯re right. I just¡­ Look, we all know you didn¡¯t want to be an admin when this started, and I guess I¡¯m just worried you aren¡¯t taking this seriously. If you don¡¯t prepare your players properly, you know what¡¯s at stake. And this¡­ doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯re preparing them right.¡± Admin 6 tapped his fingernails on his cup. He wanted to say so many things. But he¡¯d said them all before. Loudly. When this whole thing had started. None of it had been listened to. ¡°I¡¯m taking this seriously,¡± he finally said in a low voice. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me. My players will be fine.¡± Admin 5 watched him judgingly for a few seconds. ¡°Ok. Will you be there Thursday night?¡± Admin 6 glanced at his screen. The rest of the catgirls would be with Gigi by then, and he really wanted to know what the girl he¡¯d split had to say. But he could record it. And if he missed too many more admin gatherings they¡¯d ask why. He didn¡¯t want to answer that question. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll be there.¡± He smiled at her. ¡°Thanks for the codes.¡± ¡°No worries,¡± she said. ¡°Thanks for yours. See you around.¡± ¡°Bye.¡± And with a flash, he was alone. Cycle 42 (2) Dear Diary, Guess who has velociraptor pets now? It¡¯s us! Via and I got velociraptors to be our friends!!! It took a couple hours, and the raptors were super scared at first, but by the time I ran out of meatballs they¡¯d let us put collars on them. We¡¯ve been carrying them through the floors, and feeding them on every one, so they¡¯re used to it now. I can¡¯t wait to get to Floor 60 and show everyone! Well, there are four velociraptors on Floor 17. We took two with us, and left the other two there. I think they used to be cats, they act very cat-like sometimes. Via wanted to name the raptors Lex, Tim, Arby and Kelly, and I don¡¯t see any reason why not, so those are their names now. The two we have with us are Lex and Tim. I think we¡¯ll keep those with us, and always leave Arby and Kelly on Floor 17. Or maybe next cycle we¡¯ll take Arby and Kelly with us, and leave Lex and Tim there, just to see who does best as a dungeon travel companion. The one thing I¡¯m not sure about is, this is supposed to be a pacifist run. And the velociraptors kinda attack everything that moves. They¡¯re not very high-level, but they have killed a couple things. I say it still counts as a pacifist run if we don¡¯t do any killing. Via isn¡¯t so sure, but agrees there¡¯s not much we can do about it. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Other than not take the raptors with us, but that¡¯s crazy talk. Anyways, I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯re way behind the other girls now. We spent almost half a day on both Floor 17 and Floor 7, and aren¡¯t exactly rushing to get through the others. I¡¯m pretty sure the dungeon is set up so the players can pass at least three floors a day, so we¡¯re going at slightly over average player speed. But there are players who can do way more than that, so we might actually be behind a player or two. But that¡¯s ok, cuz we have velociraptors. We might need to speed things up, though. Well, we¡¯re at Floor 20, so maybe at Floor 25 we should stop trying to feed everything and just focus on getting through? Although Floor 23 is where Via was originally from, and I think she¡¯ll want to just teleport over that floor. We¡¯re a fifth of the way through the dungeon, so maybe stop trying to make friends here? I¡¯ll have to ask Via about it in the morning. I wonder¡­ we¡¯ll need a strategy for when we get to the next dungeon. The Admin wants us to do things wrong, and feeding monsters instead of fighting them is definitely wrong. For a player. But we can¡¯t just waste time feeding everyone until we make friends all the way to the bottom floor. That would take a lot of cycles where other people would win, and I don¡¯t know how many cycles we can afford to waste. Something to think about, I guess. I¡¯ll bring it up when we meet up with the girls. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (3) Dear Diary, Turns out, velociraptors are immune to siren singing! That was¡­ interesting to learn. I think Via enjoyed watching the raptors destroy the sirens on her old floor a liiiiiitle more than a pacifist should, but oh well. And yeah, we talked to the sirens. Via wanted to feed and make friends with everyone until Floor 25. She said she wanted to try and be friends with the sirens. It didn¡¯t work. They¡¯re still a group of jerks. But when they started singing, Lex and Tim screeched and attacked them. So I guess velociraptors aren¡¯t fans of singing. Good to know! Oh, tragically, we lost Lex on Floor 25. That floor is a maze, but it¡¯s filled with mimics. There are chairs and rugs that look like normal chairs and rugs, but nope. All mimics. Even some of the floor tiles are mimics. There are too many of them to be friends with. We tried with the first two, but they act like¡­ I don¡¯t know, like seagulls, maybe? They¡¯re very suspicious, screech a lot, and aren¡¯t afraid of anything. Anyways, Lex got too close to a fancy painting, and it attacked. Lex died, and is now back on Floor 17. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡­We presume. Tim is still with us, though. He doesn¡¯t seem all that upset by Lex having been eaten in front of him. Which is good. I think. If he were upset, then we¡¯d have to kill him ourselves, or feed him to a monster, and that might make him scared to come with us again. And that would be bad. Oh, have I mentioned the cookbook yet? It stayed with me! So I can give cookbooks to all the catgirl diner owners! We¡¯re on Floor 28 right now, and the diner owner, Isla, was super thrilled to get the book. She said she was going to try a couple of the recipes right away, and suggested a few suggestions on a couple recipes. Well, mostly she suggested adding spicy stuff, but I understand that. Adding a tiny bit of spice can enhance the flavor of dishes. It¡¯s like salt in that way. But she understands the difference between jalape?o spicy and wasabi spicy. It¡¯s a very important distinction, and one that I don¡¯t know all that well. I¡¯ve never really focused on spicy things. It¡¯s more¡­ chemical than what I usually focus on. I bet Y would be able to understand the chemical difference and how to apply it in recipes better. Oh, the catgirls here said Aya and Lilly and Mika and Kimi and everyone else left two days ago. So we¡¯re not too far behind, but we are behind. It¡¯s good we decided to mostly just teleport over the floors now. We should be going at about the same speed as everyone else, so we won¡¯t fall further behind. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll catch up, but we won¡¯t fall behind. And no other players have gotten here yet, so that makes me feel good. Anyways, we want to start out kinda early tomorrow, so I¡¯d better go to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (4) Dear Diary, Via doesn¡¯t have a diary! I find that kinda weird. But then, she did join us way after diaries became a thing, and I guess no one mentioned them. I know all the other girls have diaries, but they don¡¯t all write like I do. Aya does poetry, and Mika draws and writes music as much as she does diary entries. Lily writes in code for some reason. And Kimi has a spreadsheet kind of thing. I know Staab has a diary, but I¡¯ve never seen it. Y just has a bunch of notebooks with notes on how the dungeon works and scientific formulas in them. Not really a diary. Even though he does put the dates on some things, like when he was still trying to figure out the perfect ranch formula for killing slimes. But anyways, I¡¯ve been trying to convince Via to get a diary. I think it¡¯s helpful for putting things in order. Sometimes ideas get jumbled in your mind, and you don¡¯t really know what you think until you try to pin it down, writing one word after another. It¡¯s like having a super tangled ball of yarn, that looks confusing and doesn¡¯t make sense. But when you pull on one end, and force it to straighten out, then you end up with a nice, simple line that makes way more sense. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So yeah, I think everyone should have a diary of some kind. Even if it is poetry or full of drawings or just a list of things you did that day. Via should get a diary. Anyways, Tim the velociraptor is still with us. He¡¯s stopped attacking random things, and now just kinda sniffs them. But if they scream and run away he absolutely attacks. The creatures and NPCs are getting higher-leveled, and in a couple floors we¡¯ll get to creatures that can one-shot KO him. So we might have to keep a closer eye on him starting tomorrow morning. I really want to still have him when we get to Floor 60 and meet up with the girls. Well, the girls and everyone else. I guess there are three guys in the group now. Staab would very much object to being called a girl (and Lily would object to that, too), Y would find it funny most likely, and Peter¡­ I don¡¯t know what he¡¯d do. His sisters would probably snicker and tease him, but I don''t know him well enough. Actually, I suspect if we called him ¡°one of the girls¡± long enough he¡¯d choose to change his gender the next cycle and just become a girl. As a joke. Which his sisters would find hilarious, but I think Aya wouldn¡¯t like it. Unless we all changed for a cycle. I mean, we all changed colors and plan on changing race, so why not try being catbois for a cycle? Could be fun. Maybe. I really like being a catgirl, though. Nah, I probably won''t try it unless someone else brings it up. Goodnight, dungeon!
Cycle 42 (5) Dear Diary, Teleporting over floors is way faster than walking. We¡¯re already on Floor 46, and the catgirls here said everyone else left yesterday morning. So we¡¯re catching up to the others! After Floor 75 Via wants to stop teleporting and try talking again. Especially since we already know a lot of people beyond that point. So instead of convincing everyone to be friends with us, we¡¯ll just be saying hi to people who are already our friends. Which, honestly, that¡¯s the polite thing to do. If we just teleported over the air elemental¡¯s floor, they might feel sad about that. I don¡¯t want them to feel sad. Honestly, teleporting is pretty boring. I kinda miss walking. Sure, walking gets boring too, but at least with walking we see things. With teleporting I just say a spell and POOF we¡¯re at the other end of the floor. Or, most of the way at least. I wish we had some way of entertaining ourselves when teleporting. Like, if it were more like a car ride instead of instant. Which would defeat the purpose of the spell and make it pretty useless in combat, but it would make things more interesting. I guess, thinking it over, what I really want is something unknown. Like, if we got a random prize at the exit of every level. Even getting a marble would be exciting, since marbles come in different colors. And marbles are always exciting. Or if, I don¡¯t know, my hairstyle changed after every teleport. That would be super fun. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Right now it¡¯s just teleport, walk down stairs, teleport, walk down stairs. On and on until we get to a catgirl floor or it becomes night. Nothing really new and nothing exciting. A part of me almost, almost, wishes I didn¡¯t have teleport at such a high level. That would make things more interesting. But, having a velociraptor with us also makes things pretty interesting. Since we don¡¯t always know if there will be any monsters or enemies at the end of the floor, so at least we don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll have to run after Tim begging the goblin or whatever he¡¯s after to not hit him. Tim can¡¯t really kill anything any more, he¡¯s too low-level. And his attack levels are unchangeable, since he¡¯s a monster. Like the kobolds. Although I think his dexterity and jumping abilities have increased since joining us, since he can jump super high now. Actually¡­ Jumping is a skill that can be leveled up. And with every cycle reset I get to choose one skill to put a +1 in. I¡¯ve just been putting the +1 in random things, since I¡¯m kinda way OP compared to the average player on Floor 1. But if I started putting the +1 into jumping, it¡¯d be cool to see how high and far I can jump by the time we get to Cycle 100. Or Cycle 99. Whichever comes fir- that¡¯s a dumb thing to say. I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll be fighting through Cycle 100, or just to Cycle 100. I don¡¯t know if Cycle 99 will be the last cycle. That would probably be a good thing to find out. But not now, cuz I¡¯m tired and have a long day of teleporting tomorrow. We¡¯re gonna try to speed run it and get through fifteen floors in one day. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (6) Dear Diary, Well, we didn¡¯t make it fifteen floors yesterday. We made it twelve, then kinda passed out from exhaustion. So, sorry I didn¡¯t write. I guess. ¡­Sorry, inanimate notebook? That I didn¡¯t take you out of my inventory yesterday! I¡¯ll make it up to you somehow! Anyways, we¡¯re on Floor 60 now, we got here at about noon. Since we knew we only had like three floors to get through, we kinda slept in and didn¡¯t push ourselves to go super fast. Well, other than the teleporting, which is super fast. We still did that. But when we were walking, we didn¡¯t go all that fast. The girls got here early yesterday, so they¡¯ve had time to hang out and talk to Gigi. It sounds like when she was Dorothy, she couldn¡¯t differentiate what was going on here from what was going on on our floor. The girls here took more of an interest in her, so she tried to focus more on this floor. Which, I can¡¯t blame her for. We really didn¡¯t interact with her much. And it makes me glad the Admin sent her here when he un-split her. Not that we wouldn¡¯t have loved her once she was¡­ normal¡­ but it¡­ I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m glad she was sent to the girls here. She says she doesn¡¯t blame us for not interacting with her, and that being mostly ignored on one of the floors was probably for the best, so she could be around the other more. But I still feel like we should have maybe tried to be her friends. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Oh well. That¡¯s all in the past, and it worked out fine. Gigi is happier here than on our floor, and Via is happier with us than with the sirens, and I presume the siren that replaced her is happy. So it all worked out. I guess. I still feel bad, though. Iiiin other news, everyone was surprised to meet Tim! No one thought we would be able to make a velociraptor our pet that fast. Well, they didn¡¯t account for Via¡¯s obsession with dinosaurs and my obsession with being friends with everything. Plus we already have experience making friends with the dracoraptors, and velociraptors are way smaller and easier to handle than those. It¡¯s like asking two people used to making friends with tigers to make friends with a housecat. The principles are the same, but it¡¯s way easier. Plus I think the velociraptors really used to be housecats. While the dracoraptors were something way scarier. Oh! I think I forgot to mention! So, last cycle Mika asked if she could be all the magic colors at once, to get rainbow hair. The Admin was like ¡°no¡±. But, in the customization options this time, there was an option for rainbow hair. So I guess that¡¯s a compromise. Unfortunately, being a catgirl overrides hair color customization, so Mika is still blue. Or, back to being blue. Next cycle, though, she¡¯s going to be something else, and then she¡¯ll have rainbow hair. None of the players that I saw had it. So I¡¯m super curious about what it looks like. I guess we¡¯ll find out next cycle. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (7) Dear Diary, Tim is back on Floor 17. He tried biting a dire wolf, and it bit back harder. So yeah, he didn¡¯t make it. But that¡¯s ok! Soon we¡¯ll be back with the dracoraptors, and I don¡¯t know how they¡¯d react to seeing us with a velociraptor. A smaller, muuuuch weaker version of them. They¡¯d eat him for sure. Maybe if we had both velociraptors with us it would be different, but, well, probably not. I wonder if they could be put into our inventories. The pets we got at the store can be put in our inventories, so who knows! Although, that would mean we could put monsters into our inventories and keep them instead of fighting them. I don¡¯t think anyone has tried that, but it feels like if that worked it¡¯d be super broken. ¡­Well, now I¡¯m curious. Hold on. ¡­ Nope, doesn¡¯t work. I opened my inventory and asked it to put one of the slimes here into my inventory. It was like ¡°whaaaaat do you want me to do???¡± Although slimes are weird. Maybe if I asked it to accept one of the kobolds or- hold up. ¡­ The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Nope, it won¡¯t let me put Via into my inventory. Well, I tried. When we get to Floor 90 I¡¯ll try putting one of the dracoraptors into my inventory. Until then I¡¯ll stop experimenting. A part of me feels like players, real players, would have tried to cheat by putting monsters into their inventory. But then I¡¯m not a player, and the Admin wants us to try weird stuff. I feel like a player would see a monster and think ¡°kill¡±, not ¡°I wonder if I can stuff this thing into my inventory¡±. I know for a fact they don¡¯t look at monsters and think ¡°I wonder what its favorite food is¡±. So in the next dungeon I¡¯ll have to try filling my inventory with monsters, even if it doesn¡¯t work in this one. In other news, Via got a diary! I convinced her to get one at the shop on Floor 60. I haven¡¯t seen her write in it yet, but it¡¯s there. She has it. Soon she will learn the joy of keeping a diary. Or journal. I wonder if any of the not-player people have diaries. I don¡¯t think the kobolds had access to notebooks before Kimi got there. But I think the Admin has put more things in the average dungeon dweller¡¯s inventory since then. Not that it¡¯ll help the giant rat things, but the goblins and kobolds probably appreciated it. And if there isn¡¯t, I¡¯m sure some people have figured out how to make diaries or something anyway. I wonder how many players have diaries. I hope a lot of them, they probably all need therapy. It would be interesting to read one of their diaries. Altho it would probably get boring after a while. They¡¯ve been at this 42 cycles, after all, without much change. I¡¯m running out of things to talk about, and I¡¯ve only been at it three cycles. I hope things change, and I get more to write about. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (8) Dear Diary, We¡¯re on Floor 75, getting close to home! This is an even cycle, so we¡¯re going straight through and pushing the button. Well, not straight through, we¡¯ll stop at our floor a day and hang out with the kobolds a bit. And the air elementals, and the dire wolves, and the dracoraptors. All our friends. I miss spending day after day hanging out. I think, if given the choice, I might go back to being an NPC. Sure, we weren¡¯t really seen as people, but that meant we could do whatever we wanted when players weren¡¯t around. Now we can do whatever we want, but we have to travel for a week and a half before doing it. Which almost doesn¡¯t seem fair. I guess we could make friends with some of the people who live in the upper levels. And just hang out with them all one cycle. Or we could stay on Floor 60 with Gigi and Jenny. Maybe the Admin would just teleport us back down to Floor 93 when we don¡¯t plan on pushing the button. I mean, what would the harm be? It¡¯d basically be like making us NPCs again for a cycle. And then we¡¯d have more time for marble races! We won¡¯t have time for a marble race this cycle, speaking of. Which makes me very sad. Maybe we can have one marble race? A big, special one, instead of a series. We could make one giant track that leads down from the walkway! Kimi and Y know exactly the angle the marbles have to fall to not explode, so it could work! Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Yeah, I¡¯m gonna suggest we have a single marble race this cycle. Because marble races are the most important thing in life. Well, ok, food is a little more important. But just by a little bit. I miss having cooking competitions. And the music competitions, even though I never participated in those. I guess I¡¯m just kinda nostalgic tonight. Oh, after this floor Via and I are going back to making friends with everything, so we¡¯ll be going slow again. I spent most of the evening cooking with the diner owner here. She didn¡¯t like that I don¡¯t season my meatballs with anything, but I can¡¯t! Salt and spices aren¡¯t good for wolves and other animals! She pointed out that the chances of a wolf here dying due to high blood pressure is basically nil, which, she has a point. But I still don¡¯t want to give animals something that I know is bad for them. Just, on principle. And sure, I give people and players food that¡¯s super unhealthy, but that¡¯s different. If a kobold eats a deep-fried piece of chocolate cake, they¡¯re perfectly aware of how bad it is for their health. Wolves don¡¯t have that knowledge, so it¡¯s my responsibility to make food as delicious and healthy as possible. Nya. Oh heck, I forgot to make the blackberry cheese sauce for the dracoraptor¡¯s meatballs! I have to go do that before it gets too late! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (9) Dear Diary, The exit on Floor 79 is on the ceiling. Why is it there? I have no idea. When I had my pet spider it was easy to get to, since I could walk on walls. And ceilings. But this time we had to actually use wallclimbing potions, which have time limits. The kraken almost got us. Oh yeah, Floor 79 is a water floor. It has sharks and a kraken. There isn¡¯t a beach at both ends, like on the one between our floor and the kobolds. There¡¯s just a teeny little dock at the entrance, and nothing else. The first time we came here it took a while to find the exit, since it isn¡¯t obvious. Anyways, Via and I are spending the night just beyond the exit of Floor 79. We debated going down to Floor 80, since we know the people there, but decided not to. It was already kinda late. So instead I¡¯m just dropping food down to the sharks, seeing if they like any of it. So far they don¡¯t. They attack anything that hits the water, but they aren¡¯t eating it. They¡¯re just attacking. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to make friends with them. They didn¡¯t even react to fish-shaped carrots. I wonder if the sharks used to be real sharks. I don¡¯t know what else they would have been. And if a bunch of people and land animals died, chances are a bunch of sea animals died, too. But then what happened to, I don¡¯t know, the average fish? There aren¡¯t just schools of fish swimming around somewhere, are there? I know there aren¡¯t in this dungeon, but there are other dungeons. So maybe one dungeon is just completely water-based, and has all the ocean things. Cuz as far as I can tell, this is just a generic fantasy dungeon (sorry, Admin). There are basic fantasy monsters and things that are references to movies and stuff, but it¡¯s nothing new. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Except the dinosaurs. I guess those aren¡¯t fantasy. Maybe the other admins were more inventive and imaginative. Maybe there¡¯s a water dungeon, or a candy dungeon! Candy dungeon would be fun! Unless we were NPCs. Being made out of candy doesn¡¯t sound fun. The temperature of that dungeon would have to be kinda low to make sure no one melted. And fire magic like Kimi has would be totally OP. Unless it was magic, non-melting candy, which it probably would be. ¡­Wait. ADMIN, DO YOU READ MY DIARY? If you do, then I¡¯m not sorry for saying your dungeon is generic! And stop reading my diary! Reading someone¡¯s diary is rude! And anyone else who happens to be reading this, CUT IT OUT! This is a PRIVATE diary, for MY EYES ONLY! Go read your own diary! Unless you don¡¯t have one, in which case go read something else entirely! There¡¯s a cookbook in my inventory you can read, and the people in Lilly¡¯s book club have written like a dozen books so far. You don¡¯t need to read this. GOODNIGHT, Dungeon!
. . .
Sorry. Won¡¯t happen again. ¡­My dungeon¡¯s not generic. You try coming up with monsters to fill 100 floors without relying on fantasy and media. No, there isn¡¯t a pure water-based dungeon. Admin 2 made a candy/sparkle/rainbow dungeon. It¡¯s horrifying.
Cycle 42 (10) Kimi heard a faint ding as she stepped onto Floor 93. She glanced at the blue dot hovering in her field of vision and decided to ignore it. Besides, if she opened it now it would just say ¡°updating¡±. ¡°Finally, we¡¯re home,¡± Mika grumbled, stumbling towards her shop. ¡°Think Nikki would mind if I used her kitchen?¡± Staab asked. Kimi looked at him. ¡°For what?¡± ¡°Kinda feel like something alcoholic,¡± he shrugged. ¡°Might see if she has nachos or anything in there.¡± ¡°She wouldn¡¯t have nachos,¡± Y said. ¡°I know where she keeps the alcohol, though. Raid together, share the blame if she gets mad?¡± Staab nodded. ¡°Sounds good.¡± They set off for the diner. Lily yawned. ¡°I think I¡¯ll head home and upgrade my spells, maybe nap.¡± Kimi nodded, waved, and went to her shop. Once behind the desk she opened the notification.
New Item(s) Added to Shop Inventory!
She hit the notification again to see what it was. After a brief ¡°updating¡± screen, she was shown her shop inventory. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. At the top of the list was a cassette-based recording and playing device. Second came extra cassettes. After that there were over-ear headphones, and last were earbuds. Kimi stared. She checked how much money she had, and immediately bought fifty of each. The items filled the counter and spilled off. Not waiting for them all to arrive, Kimi grabbed an armful and ran outside. ¡°Mika! Mika, you have to see this!¡± ***** Dear Diary, Well, bad news, the Admin read my diary. Which is kinda creepy. But, good news, he promised to not do it again. And he answered some questions! He said the candy dungeon is horrifying, which, yeah it does sound kinda horrifying. I mean, the whole appeal of candy and glitter is that it¡¯s something exciting you don¡¯t experience every day. If everything was covered in it, the novelty would wear off super fast, and eventually your eyes would start to hurt and you¡¯d die of scurvy. I feel sorry for everyone in Admin 2¡¯s dungeon. I wonder how many dungeons there are. Aya and Kimi said there were multiple, and ¡°Admin 2¡± implies at least two admins. I wonder if our admin is Admin 1 or some other number. It¡¯s kinda weird to think about other dungeons and other admins. This dungeon is our whole world, it¡¯s hard to remember not being here. It¡¯s hard imagining other dungeons exist. Oh yeah, we¡¯re back home! And, even more exciting, we have recorders now! Like, music recorders!! Mika just about exploded with excitement when she got one. They¡¯re available in Kimi¡¯s shop, so everyone was able to pitch in and get one. We¡¯re going to take them all down to the kobolds tomorrow, it¡¯s going to be epic. And, of course, there will be a party. The yetis aren¡¯t here, pretending to be rocks still. Or, again. I guess they would have gone back to their floor when the cycle reset. I wonder if they¡¯re still pretending to be rocks. That would be hilarious and very, very sad. Actually, tomorrow we¡¯re going to be partying with the kobolds all day. I should run down to Floor 99 and see if the yetis are ok. Nah. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 42 (11) Dear Diary, Well, didn¡¯t get to the yetis today. We were too busy partying. That happens. The kobold band recorded like five songs on their fancy new recording devices, and everyone got a copy. We probably won¡¯t get to keep the tapes when the cycle resets, which is sad, but at least we¡¯ll have them when we get here. And Mika and Via can always record some songs while we¡¯re fighting our way through the dungeon. So it¡¯s not like we¡¯ll be completely without music, like we were before. Oh! We should record the goblin band! We should get a whole bunch of recording devices and just give them to everyone who wants them. It¡¯s not like we really need the gold we get from fighting, since we have all the armor and weapons we need. Plus we¡¯re way overpowered for the early floors anyway. We should just pool our money and buy a thousand recording devices. Then next cycle we can focus on giving out spare tapes. I¡¯m sure everyone would love that! I wonder how the sharks would react to music. As strange as it is, I know some creatures aren¡¯t all that excited by food. But music is like food for your soul. A nice violin solo might do wonders for calming monsters that don¡¯t care what type of sushi I¡¯m throwing at them. And hey, maybe we can waltz through floors now! Conga-ing through floors is all well and good, but if we had music and could waltz through floors it would be amazing. Salsaing through floors wouldn¡¯t work, I don¡¯t think salsa really moves around a lot. Well, it moves, but not out of one general area. What other dances are there¡­ The macarena wouldn¡¯t work at all. Line dancing goes in squares, right? And ballet is just hard. I think pirouetting through floors would be too dif- Ok. Step 1: have everyone learn how to walk on tip-toes. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Step 2: find a good music for this. Step 3: get the Admin to allow tutus as armor. Step 4: convince everyone to get a tutu and wear it. Step 5: get in a line, and ballet dance from the entrance to the exit of a floor. Just once. I just want this to happen once, and my life would be complete. I don¡¯t know how likely it is to happen, but it neeeeeeds to happen. Next cycle Aya and the triplets will be in a party with me, Mika and Via, while Staab and Lily are their own team, and Kimi and Y are their own team. I think I can convince everyone in my party to wear a tutu. Paola might complain, but she¡¯d do it. Peter would do it for the lolz, no problem. Actually, Aya might refuse. I might have to wait until I¡¯m back in a party with Kimi and Y. Yeah, Kimi, Y, Mika and Via wouldn¡¯t object to dressing in tutus and dancing through a floor. Lily would probably insist on a knee-length skirt instead of a straight tutu, but Staab would probably rather die than wear a tutu. Ok! Now I just have to figure out how to convince the Admin to put tutus in the shops! Goodnight, Dungeon!
.
From: Admin
To: Jon (Item 518)
Subject: Recordings
Hey, I know you¡¯re not officially in the band down there, but I don¡¯t remember any of their names. So congrats, you¡¯re my messenger to them now. And everyone who does music on your floor, I guess. Mind if I copied the songs you recorded into tapes in player¡¯s shops? You¡¯ll have access to them when Kimi gets to your floor again. If you don¡¯t mind, do me a favor. Whenever a new song is recorded send me a message, and I¡¯ll upload it to the database. No one will get any credit, but it¡¯ll be out there for people to hear. Thanks. PS could you guys record a performance of Hall of the Mountain King? Would be appreciated.
Cycle 43 (1)
Open customization options?
Yes | No
Mika hit yes, and was pulled into a void with a screen. She chose ¡°Race¡± on the options, scrolled, and hit ¡°Human¡±. The 3D image on the screen morphed, showing what she used to be. Almost. Her eyes shimmered with color, and her waist-length hair was a bright rainbow. As a teenager she¡¯d looked into getting her hair dyed like that. Since her hair had originally been thick, long, and pitch black, the price had been close to a thousand dollars. She¡¯d given it up as a hopeless dream. But with the magic of, well, magic, this dream was about to be a reality. She couldn¡¯t wait.
Open customization options?
Yes | No
Kimi chose yes, and closed her eyes as she was pulled into the void. They¡¯d agreed to all be human. Just for one cycle. She¡¯d agreed, too. She hit race and chose human. The 3D picture on the screen lost its cat ears and tail. The red became more auburn. Her eyes turned hazel green. Kimi looked at¡­ herself. What she had been. A stereotype. The short redhead with a big personality. The flirt. The firecracker. No. She changed her hair to be bright red with orange and blue streaks. Her eyes became crimson-tinged brown. She liked being a catgirl. She liked having ears that could turn in any direction and a tail that helped with balance. Humans were inferior. She had been a ¡°wild little thing¡± on a leash. As a human, people had always held her back. They¡¯d put her in a respectable college that led to a respectable job, with a respectable boyfriend who made sure she never did anything too crazy. Kimi was never going back to that. If needed, she could look human for a cycle. But nothing could make her act like one. Not again. Aya opened the race option and chose human. She frowned as her hair became shorter. The program must have realized she¡¯d had extensions when she died. Annoying. She switched to hair options and scrolled through the pictures. And paused. She¡¯d had knee-length straight hair for a while now. It was time for a change. There weren¡¯t any good braid options, because there rarely were in programs made by white people, but there was a decent dreadlock look. She chose it, lengthened them down to her armpits, and added gold beads. There. Something different. Her dad would have liked this look. Her mom would naturally have preferred braids, but the gold beads would have gained approval. Aya noticed her eyes were back to being black and changed them to gold. Not quite the yellow she¡¯d had as a catgirl, but close. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Actually, no, they looked brown. She hit the yellow closer to green. Well, now they looked green, not gold. Finding the perfect color was going to take a while. Lily frowned at her 3D image, debating. Would anyone notice? No one would notice. A small change wouldn¡¯t be detectable. Right? Besides, her height and weight had been different when she was an elf than a neko, so why would it be surprising if she looked a tiny bit different as a human? She increased her height an inch, hesitated, and increased her breast size. Just a little change. Nothing noticeable. To distract herself from that, she went to hair options and changed the color from flat black to black with just a shade of purple. Would only be noticeable in sunlight. She hit ¡°Apply¡± before she could panic and revert any of the changes. Nikki barely recognized the 3D image. It was of someone¡­ lost. Someone who had been left behind long ago. It wasn¡¯t someone she disliked, it was just¡­ someone else. It wasn¡¯t her any more. The image showed what Rachel had looked like, but Nikki was Nikki. Nikki hadn¡¯t been Rachel since the day Mika came running into the diner on that first cycle and knocked the door off its hinges. Not because of any fault on Rachel¡¯s part. Rachel had been a happy, well-liked girl with hopes and dreams that were going nowhere fast, but that was ok. Life didn¡¯t have to be exciting for Rachel. Nikki was just¡­ different. It would feel weird to go back to light brown hair and blue eyes. It would feel off to have freckles instead of whiskers. Well, the group was going to be human for a cycle. But no one said they all had to look like normal humans. Nikki changed the hair to forest green and the eyes to lime green. Freckles could stay, but they became rainbow colored. Instead of looking like freckles, it looked like a bag of sprinkles had exploded onto her face. Perfect. Nikki grinned and hit ¡°Apply¡±. Via hadn¡¯t paid much attention to the customization options before. She¡¯d just agreed to whatever it told her, trying to get to her friends faster. But she could change everything. She swiped her finger across the color panel, watching her hair go from red-orange through the rainbow to red-pink. Up to black and down to white. For some reason she couldn¡¯t explain, she liked white hair. It was¡­ dignified. Or something. She brought it up to be grey, then pushed it back down. She¡¯d have white hair. Deciding what color eyes to have was harder. In life she¡¯d had solid dark brown eyes, but she didn¡¯t want that. Silver eyes were cool, but with white hair she wanted brightly-colored eyes. Green or blue? After debating for a while, she remembered Y. He had one blue eye and one black eye. It made him look kinda insane though, and she didn¡¯t want that. But if she went with blue and green, that wouldn¡¯t look too odd. She tried it. It looked great. Next she made her skin a shade darker. That made her eyes and hair stand out more. Very elegant. She fiddled with the height and weight numbers, but ended up bringing them back to what they¡¯d been originally. The breast cup size toggle alarmed her, so she left it alone. That just left the last option. It also alarmed her, but curiosity overrode that. She switched the image from ¡°Female¡± to ¡°Male¡±. The 3D image changed slightly, but not as much as she¡¯d thought it would. The face structure was slightly different, but it was still recognizably her. Other things¡­ were also different. But a lot was the same. Interesting. Via reached for the toggle, stopped, and drew her hand back. She liked being a catgirl. She liked being a girl. She¡¯d never really thought about not being a girl, because wishing to be something she wasn¡¯t was a waste of time. ¡­She¡¯d tried. But if she could be anything, and the point of being human was that this was a starting point to finding out which race was the ¡°best¡±, then why not try being a guy? She knew what being a human female was like; she¡¯d been one for two decades. But she didn¡¯t know what being a human male was like. If the point of being human was to begin experimentation, then she should experiment. Her hand went to the ¡°Apply¡± button, and again she paused. What would the others think? She was a part of the group because she was a catgirl. Would they kick her out if she¡­ wasn¡¯t? Via shook her head. She probably wasn¡¯t the only one to think of this, honestly. After all, why would everyone be what they¡¯d been before? That wasn¡¯t very experiment-y. And it was just for one cycle. Next cycle, she¡¯d be a female¡­ otterkin? Or had they decided on elf for next cycle? Didn¡¯t matter. Shrugging, she hit ¡°Apply¡±. Cycle 43 (2) Dear Diary, We¡¯re all human now! Not having a tail feels kinda weird. Tails affect balance, so walking was hard for a couple minutes. The neko race also had a buff to dexterity, evened out by a debuff to strength, so we¡¯re all slightly stronger and slightly clumsier now. I¡¯m pretty meh about it. It¡¯s not that it¡¯s bad, it¡¯s just¡­ fine. It¡¯s fine. It¡¯s human. Everyone knows what being human is like. And yep, that¡¯s what it¡¯s like. Yippee. None of us really stayed with what we looked like originally. Well, ok, Aya and Staab look pretty normal. The triplets might have looked exactly identical (despite one being male and the other two female) but not to that degree. They all have light-ish skin, very dark blue hair, and sea-green eyes. How? No clue. Y has different colored eyes, like he did as a catboi, but he¡­ I don¡¯t know, it¡¯s like he¡¯s pretending to be human. There¡¯s just something sliiiiightly uncanny valley about how he looks, it¡¯s hard to say what though. Which is perfect, because Kimi looks like a catgirl who was forced into a human body. Her hair is somehow more red? Even though it has different colors in it now. It seriously looks like her ponytail could reach out and set fire to whatever it touches. And the way she moves is just¡­ not quiiiite human. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Lilly went with subtle changes, but she changed things. I think she thought no one would notice that her whole body shape is different, but come on. We were stuck together for over 20 cycles with no one else to talk to. We all noticed. I just changed my hair and eyes to keep them green. I like green. If I can¡¯t be the green catgirl, I¡¯ll be the green human. And Mika is rainbow now! Her hair is sooooo pretty! Her eyes are kinda¡­ it¡¯s like a holographic blue? So depending on which way she¡¯s looking and which angle the light¡¯s coming from, her eyes look like different colors. It¡¯s cool. If there was a holographic green, I¡¯d totally change my eyes to that, but I think it¡¯s stuck the way it is under the ¡°rainbow¡± option. Via took the most imaginative approach. She said she knew what it was like to be a human girl, so she changed to be a human guy. Which, fair. ¡°Via¡± is a girl¡¯s name, though, so we¡¯re calling him ¡°Avi¡±. Yeah, we know, not the most imaginative, but Avi is shy and doesn¡¯t like to be the center of attention (unless the center also includes dinosaurs), so we went with the quickest, easiest solution. If he thinks of a name he likes better by the time we get to the first catgirl floor, we¡¯ll switch to using that. But I think it works. Y joked he was sad that he lost one of his harem members, and offered Avi the role of ¡°dense and/or aro/ace best friend¡±. Kimi said no, she was going to start a reverse harem, and put her arms around Avi and Peter. Aya objected to this, and we discovered that when someone (Peter) accidentally dies on Floor 1, they get sent into a hole in the north-west corner of the floor. Apparently there¡¯s a message on the wall of the hole that says PvP fighting is bad. Anyways, that¡¯s it for today. Early start tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (3) Dear Diary, We have music!!! There are tapes in the catgirls¡¯ shops that have music on them now! And the coolest thing is, it¡¯s music that the kobolds played! Mika and Avi immediately recognized their band¡¯s song when it started playing. There are only like six songs available so far, but that¡¯s six more than zero! So yeah, this cycle we¡¯ll focus on pooling our money to buy recorders and spreading them around. That means we have to fight people, but when we explain that we¡¯re only doing it to get money for recorders they understand. The first catgirl floor, so the first shop, is on Floor 14. We couldn¡¯t decide if we should go back and give everyone on the floor above us recorders, cuz that would set us back by a couple days. We were about to vote on it, when the catgirls here volunteered to take the recorders up! They said that after the players pass through they have nothing better to do, so they¡¯ll help us by taking recorders all the way up to Floor 2! We gave them a map of the dungeon floors, and told them what food everyone likes so they know these catgirls are friends, too. The girls here have left their floor, but they only went to the floor above and the floor below. After dying twice they decided exploration wasn¡¯t for them. Which I understand. Dying can be pretty painful, and if you don¡¯t have any motivation to put up with it, why would you? You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. But now they have motivation! I¡¯m super excited that they¡¯ll be exploring and making friends. Anyways, Avi decided to keep that name. Mostly for convenience¡¯s sake. The System only allows three name changes, so if he went from Via to something completely different and back to Via later, there¡¯d only be one name change left. But with Avi if any other player brings it up he can just say that the System spelled his name wrong and it¡¯s fine. Plus we¡¯re all kinda already used to calling him Avi and trying to remember a different name would be hard. Oh, the triplets say they want to change their names to be the same now. Since name changing is pretty easy. They say they want their names to be Samantha, Samuel, and Samurai. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re joking. Aya said if they did, she¡¯d call them Antha, Uel and Urai. They decided that would be fine. Mika says those are actually pretty cool names, which, ok they kinda are. But being cool doesn¡¯t stop them from being weird. Actually, ¡°being cool doesn¡¯t stop you from being weird¡± applies to those three in a lot of ways. I¡¯m getting to know them better, and I like them more than I did two cycles ago, but they¡¯re still super weird. They¡¯re good at fighting, they know how to work in a team, they protect everyone in the party. They come up with some epic combo moves. Very cool. But then one of them finds an interesting rock or something and they huddle around it, whispering. A part of me really wonders what would happen if we split them into different parties. But I¡¯m not cruel enough to suggest that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (4) Dear Diary, We¡¯re still friends with the velociraptors! Lex and Tim recognized us immediately, and came running over, which made Avi super happy. And me, too. We fed them, of course, and while they were eating the other two came over. This cycle we¡¯re taking Arby and Kelly with us instead of Lex and Tim. Just to see which of them do better at traveling through floors. So far I¡¯d say Lex and Tim do better, but we¡¯ve only had Arby and Kelly with us for a day. They¡¯re still pretty nervous about this whole leaving their floor thing. Peter would have preferred if we¡¯d taken the Floor 7 wolves with us. I understand that, since the wolves are slightly friendlier than the velociraptors, but it¡¯s Avi and my¡¯s decision. If Peter wanted to bring a wolf pet with him, he should have gone ahead and kidnapped one off that floor. Maybe next cycle he will. But all I want is to make friends with them. Which I have. Aya¡¯s hair is super cool. Before, it was long and straight, and when she used lightning magic electricity would sparkle through it. Now it¡¯s kinda medium-length, but she¡¯s got gold beads in it. When she uses lightning magic now, you can see mini lightning bolts go from one bead to another. Not just sparks. And when she shakes her head the beads make noise. If I had to say who had the coolest hair, Aya or Mika¡­ I don¡¯t know who would win. Mika¡¯s is pretty, but it doesn¡¯t do anything. Aya¡¯s isn¡¯t as immediately eye-catching, but it adds flair and epicness to her movements. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Everyone else¡¯s hair is just kinda¡­ hair. It exists. It covers the tops of our heads. It helps distinguish our personalities. But no one sees it and goes ¡°wow, cool!!!¡±. Except maybe Kimi¡¯s hair. Her hair looks like it¡¯s made of fire. And thanks to magic, sometimes it is made of fire. But overall it¡¯s pretty close to what it was before. It¡¯s just¡­ more her. Avi went with white hair, instead of grey. I mean silver. I kinda think it¡¯s odd. Not completely weird, just odd. He¡¯s younger than I am, so his hair should have color in it. I think. His eyes are blue and green, so maybe if his hair was blue and green too? Or maybe red and orange, to contrast? Just something. White hair should be reserved for old people. Oh, the triplets (well, Paola) admitted that they talked in advance about what colors to make their hair and eyes. They decided it and memorized the color number code. Which, ok, that¡¯s kinda impressive. But they want everyone to think they just have a psychic link and can naturally choose identical colors even when they¡¯re separated and given a choice of any color ever. Which is what I thought. Anyways, I have to feed Arby and Kelly before I go to sleep. Don¡¯t want them to get peckish in the middle of the night and try to eat Peter or something. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (5) With one last swing of his great ax, Ox killed the spinosaurus. It fell, groaned, and vanished. In its place was a nice pile of loot. Ox and Larissa went to see what there was, but Tig stayed alert. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Larissa called. ¡°You don¡¯t want any of this?¡± ¡°There used to be four raptors,¡± Tig said. ¡°Now there¡¯s only two.¡± ¡°So?¡± Larissa asked, picking up an enchanted sword. ¡°There were only two last cycle, too.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­¡± ¡°The Admin changes things on occasion,¡± Ox shrugged. ¡°He probably put them on a different floor.¡± Tig frowned, shrugged, and took a step towards the loot. ***** Dear Diary, I miss cooking every day. Cooking is relaxing. And you get to eat yummy food when you¡¯re done. Sure, the catgirls let me use their diner kitchens, but that¡¯s only once every other day at most. I miss being able to cook for my friends every meal if they want. I miss being able to experiment. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The velociraptors seem to prefer fish to meat, so I made some fishballs. They weren¡¯t the best, I know I could do better if I had my kitchen and time. But Arby and Kelly ate them all super fast. With not-people I usually equate speed of eating with enjoyment. People like to enjoy food, they savor it and eat things in specific orders. But people also can tell you that they thought the food was super yummy. Animals can¡¯t do that. Usually things they like to eat, they either eat faster than other things or grab it and run away from the group with it. In other news, it¡¯s hard to hear things as a human. I¡¯m used to big ears that turn super easy, and pick up every little sound. Human ears are so tiny, and they don¡¯t hardly move! I can wiggle mine a bit, but nowhere near what I could do as a catgirl. Getting through floors is easier now. We aren¡¯t exactly going faster, since the floors are still big and it takes a long time to walk through them. And then it¡¯s always like fifteen minutes to go through the stairs down to the next floor. But we¡¯ve made a lot of friends, so they just wave and let us through. Or else come and ask for food. Well, Aya calls them acquaintances, not friends. Which, I can see why. We don¡¯t really know them, we just say hi and feed them. But I want to call them friends, so I will. I think next cycle everyone will be used to us having velociraptors with us. Right now they¡¯re less surprised than last time, but still not sure what to do about it. It helps that we gave the raptors collars. Having a collar makes something officially a pet. And having a leash attached to the collar means they can¡¯t attack everything that moves. They try, but they usually can¡¯t reach it. Which helps. Saying ¡°I want to be your friend, here¡¯s a pizza!¡± and then having your pet eat that person¡­ sends mixed messages. Lily suggested we find a pet that isn¡¯t carnivorous, but honestly there aren¡¯t a lot of herbivores in the dungeon. And not kidnapping a random animal and claiming it as a pet is just too much to ask. Besides, who wouldn¡¯t want a velociraptor as a pet? No one. That¡¯s who. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (6) Dear Diary, So, a couple floors have canyons in them. Nothing too exciting about that, but the triplets want to see if they can dig down into the floor below in one of them. I¡¯m just not sure why they¡¯d want to do that? I mean, when the cycle resets won¡¯t the tunnel be filled back in? Digging a tunnel just sounds like it would cause problems. Their reply to that was that kidnapping velociraptors also sounds like it would cause problems. Which, fair. But digging a tunnel doesn¡¯t sound fun. Even with magic, moving a bunch of dirt sounds like lots of hard work. Whereas giving a velociraptor a bunch of food is very fun. Mika says she¡¯s having fun as a solo player, but she misses us. Mika kinda needs people to talk to, so I think she won¡¯t want to solo again. I might not mind going solo one cycle. I¡¯d miss everyone, but I have people to talk to and cook for, so it¡¯s not that bad. I¡¯d just take a really long time to get through the dungeon. I think in a dozen or so cycles Avi might be able to go through solo. By then we¡¯ll be used to everything we can¡¯t become friends with, so he won¡¯t have any problem with a solo pacifist run. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The triplets have decided that next cycle they¡¯ll change their names to Samantha, Samuel, and Samurai. Because no one can stop them. Well, Aya tried to stop them, but Paola really wants to change her name to Samurai. I guess there are dumber names out there. Like¡­ Sample would be dumb. And¡­ Samba? I don¡¯t know. Anyways, they think these new names will make them happy or something, so who am I to argue? They asked Aya if she wanted to change her name, too, and she declined. She says she likes Aya. That made me happy. We didn¡¯t choose our names, but I think everyone¡¯s names fit them. I mean, if Mika had been named Aya and Aya had been named Mika, I probably wouldn¡¯t think about it all that much. But the sounds of the name kinda imply a personality, right? And the implied personalities fit everyone in the group. ¡­I guess that¡¯s why we always called Gigi Dorothy. Gigi is a name that fit our group¡¯s naming pattern, and it implies¡­ I don¡¯t know, someone active. Someone¡­ like how Gigi acts, really. It doesn¡¯t imply someone who sits behind a desk all day, staring at the wall without blinking. Ok, Dorothy doesn¡¯t fit that either, but it fits better than Gigi. And it kinda made it clear she wasn¡¯t one of us. Which, yeah, is kinda mean. But there wasn¡¯t really anything we could do about it. Was there? I don¡¯t think there was. We messaged the Admin about it. I didn¡¯t message about it as much as I messaged about wanting basil, so I guess I could have done more. And she did say it was good we left her alone, so she could try to be on Floor 60 more. So¡­ I don¡¯t know. Anyways, I should get some sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (7) Dear Diary, The Admin needs to give us electric scooters or something. Walking everywhere is getting really boring. I don¡¯t think I want a car. Cuz then we¡¯d be inside something, and instead of fighting monsters we¡¯d just run them over. Which would feel wrong somehow. And it¡¯d be harder to give them food. I wonder if he could give us horses. That would be fun. Or maybe Avi and I can steal a stegosaurus and ride that through the dungeon! But I¡¯m not sure if a stegosaurus would fit through all the exits. And getting it to the exit on the ceiling would be hard. I mean, we¡¯d have to give it like four or five wallclimbing potions. And I¡¯m pretty sure the kraken would be able to grab it super easily. And when sharks jump out of the water, they¡¯d be able to grab onto its tail and spine plate things. I don¡¯t know if the wallclimbing potions have a weight limit, but a stegosaurus with five catgirls and three sharks hanging off it would probably reach that limit. Altho if I had a camera I¡¯d absolutely want a picture of that. There are a couple things I¡¯d want pictures of if I had a camera here. Like the dire wolves, and the velociraptors, and the dracoraptors, and Nat and Gin and Mar, and the kobold band¡­ Everyone, I guess. Having a camera would be cool. But still not as cool as it is to have music. Everything is better with background music. Whenever we get to a catgirl floor, Mika and Avi just huddle in a corner and write music for hours. Until someone drags them away from their notebooks, at least. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Mika is about ready to ask the Admin to let her stay back on our floor for a cycle to record music. Avi would want to stay with her if she did that, I think. But I don¡¯t think that would be allowed. I mean, we¡¯re Players now. There¡¯s a big difference between Players and NPCs, and we aren¡¯t really supposed to switch. Players talking to NPCs isn¡¯t ¡°allowed¡±, or at least it felt that way when we were NPCs. So a Player spending a cycle or two on a floor, doing nothing but writing music, would probably be super not allowed. This cycle we¡¯re going to spend on our floor, instead of going down to push the button. Even if we hadn¡¯t decided that before, when we found out about the music we probably would have stopped anyway. It¡¯s just too exciting of a development. It¡¯s something we need to share with the kobolds. I know we technically got them last cycle, but it was too new then. If we¡¯d stayed, we wouldn¡¯t have had time to think of all the possibilities. But now we¡¯ve had time to think about it. Mika and Avi have a couple new epic songs to record. Everyone in the dungeon will get a recorder, so there¡¯s the possibility of collaborations! We¡¯re out of the ¡°AAAAAH MUSIC!!!!!!¡± phase, and solidly into the ¡°OoOoOo possibilities¡± phase. So yeah, we need to sit down and make our ideas reality. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (8) Dear Diary, Arby and Kelly are back on their floor. They were getting pretty good at not attacking everything that moved, which is nice. I¡¯m not sure which two velociraptors are better as travel companions, them or Lex and Tim. Avi and I haven¡¯t really discussed it yet, but we¡¯ll have to before the cycle ends. Anyways, they decided to attack a slime. I don¡¯t know why. But they jumped onto the slime and sank in, dissolving pretty fast. I think they¡¯ll never touch a slime again. I know I never wanted to touch a slime again after the first time I got dissolved to death. So yeah, no more velociraptors. But that¡¯s ok, since we¡¯re pretty close to home. We¡¯ll be back with our dracoraptors soon! And we¡¯ll be back to marble racing! I have a pretty big collection of marbles to sort through for the best ones, which is exciting. I love racing like two hundred marbles at once. The sound it makes is epic. And, of course, I¡¯ll be able to cook as much as I want! I¡¯ll be back in my kitchen, with all my gadgets, and I won¡¯t be in anyone¡¯s way. Cooking is always fun, but cooking at home is relaxing. I really want to make like a ten-course meal that takes multiple days to prepare. Or at least one full day. Something that requires me to do nothing but cook all day long, and that takes lots of different techniques. Or maybe one big thing. Like a giant pizza or an eighteen-layer cake. With each layer a different flavor. I wonder if the triplets know how to cook. They¡¯ve never mentioned it, but then I¡¯ve never asked. And most of the time I knew them they were ants or mosquitoes, which can¡¯t really cook. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I should ask. Maybe they¡¯ll join me! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Avi woke up with Nikki¡¯s arm around him. This wasn¡¯t the first time that¡¯d happened. Nikki moved around a lot in her sleep, and 99 times out of 100 sleep-snuggled something. Usually one of the velociraptors or a party member, but anything nearby was at risk. The rest of the party was stirring; the dungeon was going from ¡°night¡± to ¡°day¡±. Which only meant more light came from the ceiling. Avi had tried to find other differences, and failed. Nikki, starting to wake up, sighed. Her breath tickled the back of Avi¡¯s neck, making his hair stand on end. ¡°Erm, Nikki?¡± He tried removing her arm. She moved her hand onto his chest, pulling him closer against her. ¡°Five more minutes¡­¡± Avi, feeling his face burn, shifted into fetal position. ¡°C- could, erm, pleaseletgo.¡± ¡°Mmmmmno,¡± she said, her fingers slowly curling. Avi felt his brain short out. ¡°Hey Nikki!¡± Paola called. ¡°Is this rhubarb?¡± There was a delay of a few seconds, then Nikki sat bolt upright. ¡°Rhubarb?¡± She scrambled to her feet, running to see what plant Paola had found. Avi stayed in fetal position, waiting for his heart rate to slow down. Peter knelt down next to him, grinning. ¡°You ok there?¡± ¡°Fine,¡± Avi squeaked. ¡°Need help getting up?¡± ¡°No. Thank you.¡± Peter gave Avi a friendly pat on the shoulder, still grinning. ¡°If you need any help¡­ or advice¡­ let me know.¡± Avi felt his face turn red again. ¡°Th- thanks.¡± Cycle 43 (9) Dear Diary, We¡¯re back home! When we got here, my inventory updated, and I got tapioca pearls and a couple tropical fruits! Mango smoothies and boba tea are now on the menu!!! I¡¯m going to have to experiment with the tapioca pearls. I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re pure starch, but if I pound them down they might make a kind of flour? Then, the possibilities with tapioca flour are very enticing. It might not work, but we¡¯ll never know until we try! Nat and Mar have been trying to make yogurt. To get yogurt, instead of just sour milk, you really need the right kind of bacteria. Which we don¡¯t have. But then, good yogurt bacteria didn¡¯t always exist, and humans figured it out. So why can¡¯t we? So far, they¡¯ve managed to make mayonnaise (which we had, but theirs is better), sour cream (which we had, and the stuff in my inventory is better) (sorry), and almost buttermilk. Which is gross anyways and I don¡¯t know why they tried. They decided ice cream was too much work, and ditto with whipped cream. The one time they tried to make whipped cream it turned into butter. Good butter, but still. So now I think the only dairy-based item they have left to make is yogurt. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re aiming for solid yogurt, or the kind you can drink. I have no idea which would end up easier to make. But hey, if they manage it, they can now make it mango flavored! You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Meanwhile, the kobold band members are kinda the MVPs on their floor right now. Everyone who can do music is, but the band is extra popular. They were thrilled when Mika and Avi got there, and have been practicing non-stop. Avi hasn¡¯t even gone to see the dracoraptors, which surprised me. I mean, if I had to bet on if he thought music or dinosaurs were more important, I would have said dinosaurs. But then there were like a dozen people who really really want him to stay down and do music, while I¡¯m the only person who supports his ¡°become BFFs with dracoraptors¡± hobby. Being popular is a big draw. I guess. I don¡¯t know, I kinda feel like he¡¯s been avoiding me. Not, like, to the point of awkwardness, but if it¡¯s just us in an area then suddenly it¡¯s just me. I don¡¯t think he¡¯s spoken to me since we got down here, but that might just be because we¡¯re both busy with other people. I can¡¯t tell if it¡¯s weird or not. Anyways, I need to go see if the dracoraptors prefer tropical fruits to blackberry. I don¡¯t think they will, given how much they like blackberry, but you never know. I mean, if their favorite thing in the universe was pineapple, they should be able to get it. Although pineapple is pretty acidic. Maybe I should stick to things that can¡¯t hurt them. Nah, they probably won¡¯t eat it if it¡¯s poisonous to them. They¡¯re smarter than the dire wolves that way. And besides, who knows what dinosaurs can digest. It¡¯s not like they were studied a whole lot or anything. It¡¯ll be fine. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (10) Dear Diary, Marble races have started! And I¡¯m in second to last position! Only Staab is behind me. So that kinda sucks. But, you can¡¯t win them all. Such is life. Blackberry continues to be the dracoraptor¡¯s favorite fruit. Or berry, I guess. They certainly don¡¯t mind mango or starfruit, and they found the dragonfruit interesting, but they didn¡¯t demand more like they do with blackberry. And they pointedly ignored all the other fruits. So I was right that they won¡¯t eat things that are poisonous to them. Or else they just don¡¯t like the taste of kiwi. Either way, it wasn¡¯t eaten. I wonder why strawberry-kiwi is such a popular combo. I mean, it tastes good, sure, but who was the first person to look at those two things from very different parts of the world and go ¡°hmm, the perfect match¡±? Or is it just cuz pink and green look good together? I suspect it might be at least part that. Personally, I prefer peach and strawberry. But that color combo isn¡¯t as eye-catching. Anyways, the players should be here soon. The real players, I mean. Obviously we¡¯re here. Aya and Kimi think we should ask the Admin to change us into catgirls. Lily thinks it isn¡¯t all that important, but I kinda feel weird about pretending to be an NPC as a human. I mean, someone might recognize that we¡¯re players. As catgirls it was kinda¡­ yeah, they might have recognized us, but we¡¯ve always been catgirls so obviously people would recognize us here. But changing into humans is a big change. Players have a good chance to recognize us as someone they saw on Floor 1. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Lily says no, since she was an elf before, and it was fine. Besides, they¡¯re bound to recognize us eventually. Which, fair. I still kinda want to turn back into a catgirl. It would feel weird to cook for a Player as a human. It¡¯s not that we have to, but I think we¡¯ll be emailing the Admin before the Players get here. Iiiiin other news, Avi is totally avoiding me. I asked Mika about it, and she says she doesn¡¯t know why. She asked if we had an argument or something, but we didn¡¯t. I don¡¯t think we did, at least. I want to ask him what¡¯s wrong, but that¡¯s kinda hard to do when he won¡¯t talk to me at all. I miss talking to him. I might have to just tie him to a chair or something and ask what¡¯s up. No one will notice if I put a sleeping potion in his soda, right? Actually, I wonder what those things taste like. And if cooking them changes their magical potency. They¡¯re dark blue, so I kinda always presumed they taste like blueberry, but they might taste like vanilla for all I know. Or water. Wait, what are they for? It¡¯s not like Players walk up to a goblin and go ¡°hey, here¡¯s a free drink! Please drink it now!¡± ¡­That¡¯s gonna bother me. I¡¯m gonna go ask Kimi. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Bonus Chapter: Names! Sadie here! So! I listened through the audiobook of Volume 1 (which you should totally preorder), and I noticed something. Instead of having the narrator say "this has been Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a LVL100 Catgirl Chef Volume 1" or something that, like, makes sense, they have her repeat the title twice. She says "this has been Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a LVL100 Catgirl Chef, book 1 of Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a LVL100 Catgirl Chef". I''m not convinced they didn''t do that just to add a couple extra seconds onto the runtime, but whatever. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Now, this opens up possibilities. Instead of just having the volume titles be "Volume 1" and "Volume 2", now that Podium has decided my vol. 1 title is stupidly long... I could come up with an equally stupid and stupidly long title for vol. 2. I''m thinking of "I was reincarnated as a catgirl NPC but accidentally became a Player, now what?!?!" Or possibly "All I want to do is cook for my velociraptors but I''m stuck as a player in a loop dungeon!" But I''m sure you, dear minions, can come up with even better suggestions! Give me ideas! The only thing to remember is, Amazon (where vol. 1 is available in paperback and on kindle) only allows a title to be 200 characters long. The current title is 63 characters long, so it can only be three times as long as that. Very restrictive, I know. I''m sure together we can come up with the most epic title ever!!! Cycle 43 (11) Dear Diary, The players got here! We messaged the Admin about the whole catgirl thing, and he agreed we should be catgirls here. He didn¡¯t change our race or anything, but he put a kind of disguise over us. So now we look like any other catgirl NPC. It¡¯ll last until the cycle ends, and he¡¯s putting a program thing in that¡¯ll turn on any time we¡¯re on this floor. So when we go to the kobolds we¡¯ll look like humans again, or whatever we were, but if the kobolds come here they¡¯ll see us as catgirls. The program doesn¡¯t apply to Staab, Y or the triplets. They get to stay looking like Players, since they never had to interact with anyone before. And they looked pretty different as NPCs than they do now. Oh, the program just changes us to look like we¡¯re the neko race, not a catgirl specifically. So Avi is a catboi now. Which, thanks to the rules of the race, means he has silver hair again. Whiiiich, good. Oh, it also means Mika is back to having blue hair, which is very sad. I don¡¯t think she actually cried about losing her epic rainbow hair, but she came pretty close. Next cycle we¡¯ve decided to be the otter race, and they don¡¯t really have¡­ distinguishing features. Their fur goes from tan to dark brown, and eyes are different colors, but overall they look pretty similar. I¡¯m excited about it. But their ears are even smaller than human ears, so I don¡¯t know about that. Being able to swim like an otter will be totally epic tho. I might even be able to outswim sharks! This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ve decided on who¡¯ll be in what group yet. Aya and the triplets will be their own party again, I know that. But I don¡¯t know how the rest of us will split up. I think we might either go back to Lily and Staab being a team, and the rest of us together, or it¡¯ll be Lilly and Staab, Kimi and Y, and then me with Mika and Avi. ¡­He¡¯ll have to talk to me if we¡¯re in a group with just Mika. Oh, Kimi and Y decided to try getting a shark as a pet. They figured out how to make a floating water bubble, and have it move around based on whatever was inside. Magic is¡­ interesting. It would have worked, if sharks weren¡¯t, well, sharks. I think they both got eaten like a dozen times before giving up. They gave it their best shot, though. We¡¯ve all agreed that if they decide to try and make a slime their pet, we¡¯ll duct tape them to chairs and show them a presentation on why slimes wouldn¡¯t make good pets. A very boring presentation. That lasts hours. Until they both swear to not even try. I think Avi and I set a bad example by making the raptors our pets. I mean, we took time and did tests and research and stuff. We didn¡¯t just say ¡°that would make a cool pet!¡± and grab one! It took effort. And if the velociraptors didn¡¯t want to stay with us, we would have let them go. Maybe. In any case, a slime would not work as a pet. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Bonuws Chaptew: the Tawe of F-Rank [Cycwe 1] Fwank gwipped the handwe of his bwonze swowd, scweaming what he thought was a tewwifying battwe cwy as he wan at a gwoup of kobowds. The kobowds stepped aside, wetting him wun past them into a wivew of wava. Fwank wespawnyed on Fwoow 1. He cuwsed, yewwing into the empty woom. Aftew a few minuwtes he angwiwy puwwed a nyew bwonze swowd ouwt of his inventowy and stawked to the exit. He stomped dowon the staiws, ending uwp back at the entwance of Fwoow 2. The kobowds wooked ovew fwom whewe they wewe pwaying basketbaww. Thwee sighed, but the fouwth took a few steps towawds him. ¡°Wook,¡± it said. ¡°Duwde. I¡¯m sowwy. But u¡¯ve died hewe wike a dozen times awweady. Juwst¡­ keep going. Ok nya? We¡¯ww pwetend u kiwwed us. It¡¯ww be finye.¡± Fwank bwinked. They couwd tawk? He hadn¡¯t imaginyed they couwd tawk. Ow if they couwd, nyot in Engwish. He swowwy put his swowd away, nyodding. ¡°Uwu, thanks,¡± he muttewed. Avoiding theiw pitying eyes, he twudged thwough the fwoow to the exit. [Cycwe 2] Fwank scweamed, hacking at the pwant that was gnyawing at his awm. It stubbownwy wefused to die. Finyawwy he hit it enyough times that it scweeched and wecoiwed. How did it scweech? Did pwants have vocaw cowds? He nyeithew knyew nyow cawed. It wet him go. That¡¯s aww that mattewed. He took a step, and- His foot sank into quwicksand as mosquitowos swawmed awound him. They wewen¡¯t attacking with as muwch enthuwsiasm as befowe. Nyot that Fwank cawed, as he feww ovew and was envewoped in quwicksand. He fwaiwed, aaaaand wespawnyed on Fwoow 1. Fwank gwumbwed, mawching to the exit. He wawked down the staiws, thwough the entwance to Fwoow 2, waved at the kobowds who wewe setting up a pwopew basketbaww couwt, and continyued on to the exit. Down anyothew fwight of staiws, onto Fwoow 2, gwawe at the cawnyivowous fwowew, and stomp thwough. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The fwowew dawted out, shawp petaws aimed at his awm. Befowe it couwd weach him, the mosquitowos gwabbed it. They hewd the snyapping bud back, buzzing angwiwy. Fwank stawed in amazement, nyot suwe what to do. Deciding to nyot tempt fate, he pushed his way into the jungwe. Suddenwy a gwoup of mosquitowos fwew in fwont of him, fowming an X in the aiw. Fwank stopped, squinting. They gwouped togethew, then fowmed an awwow, pointing wight. Vewy cautious, Fwank tuwnyed and wawked wight. [Cycwe 3] Fwank thanked the expwoding gowems on Fwoow 5, stomping mud off his boots juwst beyond the exit. They towd him it was nyo pwobwem, and wished him wuck on Fwoow 6. Again. Sighing, Fwank twudged down the staiws. He bwaced himsewf, and stepped thwough the entwance. Immediatewy, he was bwasted by wind and sand. Cuvwing his entiwe head with a scawf, he put his weft hand on the waww and stawted wawking. He¡¯d twied fowwowing the wight waww, and had fawwen into a canyon. Hopefuwwy the canyon didn¡¯t extend aww the way acwoss the fwoow. He stumbwed his way thwough the fwoow, twipping ovew wocks and cacti, feewing sand fiww his boots. He weawwy wished thewe was a showew somewhewe in the dungeon. And then he feww into a canyon. At this point he wasn¡¯t pawticuwawwy bothewed by his impending death; as he feww mostwy he thouwght abouwt how to detect the canyon without taking the scawf off his eyes. He wondewed if thewe was a bwidge somewhewe in the middwe of the fwoow. He wondewed what monstews thewe wewe on the othew side of the canyon. ¡­And then he wondewed why he hadn¡¯t hit the bottom yet. Fwank waited a few seconds, then vewy cawefuwwy peewed his scawf down. Sand hit his face, but he ignyowed it. He wooked down, and saw a townyado benyeath him. It was cawwying him acwoss the fwoow, ovew bent desewt pwants and stwange wock fowmations. It dwopped him wight in fwont of the exit, swowed to a tiny duwst deviw, and then spun off into the distance. ¡°Thank u!¡± Fwank cawwed at it, and wawked thwough the exit. Suddenwy he found himsewf back on Fwoow 1. He stopped, tuwnying awound. ¡°I didn¡¯t die this time, nya!¡± he shouted into the empty woom. ¡°What gives?!¡± A message nyotification popped into his vision. Stiww annyoyed at being back on Fwoow 1, he openyed it.
Fwom: Admin To: F-wank Hey. So. You are by far the worst player I¡¯ve ever seen. Like seriously. Your main strategy seems to be ¡°get the NPC¡¯s to take pity on me¡±. Which, yeah, it¡¯s A strategy. But come on dude, just no. Something tells me you¡¯d be happier as an NPC than as a player. Rather, you¡¯d be happier as literally anything other than a player. Die again this cycle, and I¡¯m gonna reassign you to be an NPC. Ok? Great.
Fwank hit wepwy, thinking it uvw.
Fwom: F-wank To: Admin Can I be an NPC on Fwoow 69 owo?
The answew came back awmost instantwy.
Fwom: Admin To: F-wank Lol sure, why not.
Fwank nyodded to himsewf. He wawked to the exit, down to Fwoow 2, and bewwy fwopped into wava. Cycle 43 (12) Tig frowned, walking through the entrance to Floor 93. Ox and Larissa ignored him. They didn''t like talking about what had happened here, and he was still upset about it. He doubted he¡¯d ever get over it. It was mid-afternoon, so they went to the diner to ask how many Players had been through already. The green catgirl said only two groups, the first of which had spent the night and left in the morning. On the one hand, bad. On the other hand, there were only three people in that group, so if Tig¡¯s group passed the group that had gotten in at noon they still had a chance. They decided to stay the night. Floor 97 was more or less the great equalizer, and since they all had spider pets, they could just walk over most of the enemies. They went to the inn. The catgirl there was now a catguy. Tig studied his face as Ox paid for the rooms, convinced he¡¯d seen it before. Or, maybe not the face. But the way he held himself, the slightly timid glances, the height¡­ Shaking the feeling off, he followed Larissa to the mage¡¯s building to level up their fire protection rings. To survive a blast from the Floor 97 dragon, the rings had to be at least Level 8 (out of 10), and his was currently a 5. They handed the rings over and waited while the purple-haired mage did her magic. Larissa mentioned that two cycles ago, the mage had been an elf for some reason. When that was done, they met back up with Ox at the diner. Tig frowned at the green-haired catgirl, thinking things over. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Hey,¡± he called to her. ¡°If I wanted to feed a raptor, what should I give it?¡± ¡°Dracoraptor or velociraptor?¡± she immediately asked. ¡°Either.¡± ¡°Dracoraptors like anything cheese or blackberry based,¡± she said happily. ¡°I¡¯m still trying to figure out the velociraptor¡¯s favorite food, but anything fish-based they like.¡± ¡°Do you feed them often?¡± Ox asked. ¡°Yeah, when we-¡° She cut herself off, ears going flat. Tig stood, pointing. ¡°You¡¯re Players! Aren¡¯t you? You¡¯ve been changing your race and gender lately! And you stole raptors off Floor 17, didn¡¯t you?¡± Her tail poofed up, eyes going wide. ¡°Welllllll¡­ Maybe?¡± ¡°How?¡± Larissa asked. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t know?¡± ¡°If you are a Player,¡± Ox said slowly, ¡°want to join us next cycle?¡± ***** Dear Diary, I forgot to say! There¡¯s an item in Kimi¡¯s shop that turns any potion into a mist! And then, anything that inhales the mist gets the effect of the potion! So to put things to sleep, just take the sleeping potion (which tastes kinda like rosemary, for no reason I can tell), and activate the item. Then poof there¡¯s a section of air that if anything breathes they immediately pass out! Buuuuuut, the item (it¡¯s a little metal box with a fan inside) works on any liquid. That includes juice and coffee. The air elementals can¡¯t eat anything, since they¡¯re made of air. But they can taste the air. Soooooo if I use the item on a bunch of juice, they can taste the juice! There are so many new things I can do with this!!! I can¡¯t wait to try them all out next cycle! I have to think of recipes now! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 43 (13) Dear Diary, Last night I was too excited about the potion thing, and there were too many Players around, so I should write it now. A group of Players, the ones we stole the key from way back when, recognized us as Players. Which I felt was super, super bad. I still don¡¯t know how to feel about it. But then they asked if I wanted to join their party. Ox figured out that if we always got here first, we must be kinda OP. Which is true. I don¡¯t know if they asked anyone else, but I don¡¯t think I could. I mean, we¡¯re the catgirls. We¡¯re a team. I was mad at Aya for not staying with us, so how could I do the same thing and go with another group? It wouldn¡¯t feel right. But maybe it could be educational? Maybe learning about how real Players think would be good. And this group is usually one of the first ten to show up, so obviously they know what they¡¯re doing. I know the Admin doesn¡¯t want us to think like Players, but if we knew how they thought, maybe it could come in handy? I¡¯d still feel bad about it. I don¡¯t think I could join them next cycle, regardless, just because I¡¯m too excited about the potion thing. But cycle after next maybe? If they haven¡¯t changed their minds. And if no one else wants to go. I don¡¯t know. Aaaanyways, I went up to the walkway thing today to check if the treasure chest we left up there still had leaves in it. It didn¡¯t. So I think next cycle in my free time as we come down I¡¯ll collect leaves and draw on them. A treasure chest should have something in it. Even if it is something totally worthless. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. It¡¯s weird, but the walkway seems higher than it used to be. I haven¡¯t gone up there in a while, but I¡¯m pretty sure we didn¡¯t put in that many stairs. I¡¯ll have to ask Kimi or Mika about it, since they both know the exact height of it. Y would have it written down, but he didn¡¯t make marble race tracks with those numbers in mind, so he wouldn¡¯t know off the top of his head. Oh, this cycle, Mika won the marbl- . . . . . ***** Avi knocked on the door to Nikki¡¯s room. ¡°Nikki?¡± There was a thump, two footsteps, and the door was wrenched open. Nikki beamed. Avi looked down. ¡°Hey, I, sorry I¡¯ve kinda not-¡° ¡°Apology accepted,¡± she said, giving him a quick hug. ¡°Are we friends again?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Avi said, tensing slightly at the touch. ¡°Erm.¡± She waited, 100% of her focus on his face. ¡°I¡­¡± Avi dared look into her bright eyes, and forgot how to breathe. He panicked, taking a step back, forgetting stairs. He yelped, flailing as he lost balance. Nikki grabbed his shirt and hauled him up just in the nick of time, stumbling back through the open door. Avi¡¯s hands landed on her shoulders. He looked at his left hand, because looking anywhere else might be a hazard to his health. She giggled. Her fist, still clutching his shirt, rested on his chest. ¡°Are you ok? You¡¯re acting really weird.¡± Eighty-seven replies and explanations ran through Avi¡¯s mind before he gave up and just kissed her. Cycle 44 (Kimi)
Day 1 of Cycle 44
Permanent skill advancement +1 to speed Currently at 92
Items kept +1 Fire dagger, +2 bikini armor (fire resistant) If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Race Otterkin Buffs: swim speed, water maneuverability, cold resistance Debuffs: heat resistance, speed, out of water maneuverability
Magic color Red Color effect: changes eye color and adds a tint to fur.
Party Me, Y, Mika, Nikki, Via
Other notes Otter fur makes clothes feel superfluous. None of the guys have shirts. Mika¡¯s only wearing a belt to hang her scimitar on, which bothers Lily. Y looks more like a weasel than an otter. Jen, Paul and Paola have changed their names to Samantha, Samuel and Samurai. Via is Via again.
Cycle 44 (Mika) Floor 42 Here there¡¯s a hive mind of mosquitoes who have discovered that by beating their wings faster or slower, they can adjust the pitch of their buzzing. It¡¯s by no means a loud sound, but a hundred of them buzzing in time makes a sound more or less like a violin mixed with white noise. After months of practice, they can change their pitch almost instantly. They can¡¯t quite manage fast-paced songs, so Flight of the Bumblebee is out, but with practice most slow to medium songs are perfectly doable. The hive mind is made of four teenagers who were best friends and had known each other since kindergarten. They¡¯re fairly different, but understand how to work together to accomplish a goal. They think being in a hive mind is ¡°super cool¡±. They¡¯ve managed to paint the side of their floor with pointillism, using different shades of mud and the blood of their enemies. It¡¯s pretty, but kinda monochromatic. I¡¯ve left them a few paint sets, so they¡¯ll be repainting it soon. Floor 8 The goblins here don¡¯t have most of the resources the Floor 97 kobolds have, so they haven¡¯t been able to make stringed instruments. But they have managed to build drums out of wood and various semi-flexible materials. Each goblin is in charge of building and maintaining their own drum, so no two are alike, other than in basic aesthetic design. Because bands need a theme. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. About half their songs are purely instrumental, and half include singing. The way they write music is more or less the way an orchestra does it, with each participant having a slightly different sheet based on what instrument they play. Except, with no piano or horns or strings, they base the sheets on if the drum makes a higher or lower sound, if it¡¯s more wooden or tinny, and other factors. Interestingly, since goblins have thick, very solid nails, they prefer using their hands over using drumsticks. They say this gives them more control over the sound and a wider range, as it¡¯s a simple matter to use their fingertips instead of fingernails. I don¡¯t know if the drums affected this, but the goblins seem to love circles. Their houses are teepees, which are round, arranged in a circle around a big round firepit. The decorations are all rather circular in nature, from design to color choices. Tables and beds are all round. And in taking turns, like lining up for pizza, their queue ends up more as a spiral than a line. I¡¯m not sure if they¡¯ve realized this or not. I don¡¯t think anyone else in my group has. It¡¯s not obvious, until you notice there aren¡¯t any straight lines anywhere in their anything. Now it¡¯s all I can see. Floor 97 There are enough people on this floor for several bands, but those who are musically inclined have formed two groups: those in The Band, and solo acts. People who prefer to practice alone are often asked to join The Band for a particular song or two, but there is a distinction. The Band (there¡¯s no real reason for a specific name, since there¡¯s only one) currently consists of five members: one guitarist, one drummer, one bassist, one xylophone player, and one violinist. Not a normal band configuration, but it works. If I were to write about the kobold¡¯s lives and culture we¡¯d be here all day. I could fill pages with the stuff I know about them. So I¡¯ll summarize: Parties. These kobolds love parties. They love music, and art, and food, and fluffy animals, and parties. They are the least solemn collection of people I¡¯ve ever met. They¡¯re a fun group. Cycle 44 (Aya) How many years here? Spring, summer, autumn, winter Time has no meaning * * * Samantha, Samuel Both are nice, normal, good names Samurai is not * * * Dinosaurs, not pets We need to leave them alone Velociraptor * * * Music is quite nice You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Having songs to play all day Realize, I missed it * * * Fighting as otters Anthropomorphisation Otterkins are fun * * * Swim fast and swim straight Sharks and sirens after us Water floors are best * * * Try to be the best Overspecialization Min-maxing is bad * * * The marble races An old pastime that I miss Can¡¯t have everything * * * One two three four five Six seven eight nine and ten Plus seven, haiku * * * Monsters everywhere All ready to fight, but why? Dungeon purpose, what? Cycle 44 (Lily) Cycle 44 Day 5 M hs rsx pmoi fimrk er sxxivomr. Mx¡¯w rsx xli asvwx vegi, M¡¯q wyvi, fyx mx¡¯w shh. Sxxivw aepo sr epp jsyvw, ws xs qszi uymgopc ai lezi xs ywi lerhw erh jiix. M epaecw jiip pmoi M riih xs aewl qc lerhw ejxiv vyrrmrk. M riziv ettvigmexih fimrk fmtih fijsvi. Ribx gcgpi ai¡¯zi ekviih xs fi haevziw, almgl M lehr¡¯x fiir pssomrk jsvaevh xs, fyx ex piewx haevziw evi fmtihep. Erh ai¡¯pp fi ksmrk mr eptlefixmgep svhiv jvsq xlir sr syx, almgl mw kssh. M vieppc lezi rs mhie alc ai higmhih xs ks amxl sxxivomr rsa, sxliv xler wizivep tistpi aivi zivc gyvmsyw efsyx mx. Qmoe vijywiw xs aiev gpsxliw, gpemqmrk jyv asvow aipp irsykl. Weqyvem (wxmpp e wxytmh reqi) ekviiw, erh lew gstmih liv. Gepp qi sph-jewlmsrih, fyx M fipmizi gpsxliw evi rigiwwevc jsv qshiwxc erh tvsxigxmsr. Vikevhpiww sj jyv gsziveki. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. M asrhiv mj Qmoe lew viepmdih, ew wssr ew ai viegl Jpssv 93, syv vegi ampp glerki xs rios. Ex almgl tsmrx wli ampp zivc wyhhirpc rsx lezi xlmgo, rmttpi-gszivmrk jyv. Wtieomrk sj wyhhir glerkiw, wsqixlmrk qswx hijmrmxipc lettirih fixaiir Ezm erh Rmoom. Zme egxw pmoi wli¡¯pp ibtpshi mj Rmoom xsygliw liv, erh Rmoom oiitw wxevmrk ex liv. Hyi xs sxxiv jegiw, M ger¡¯x xipp alex xli wxeviw mrhmgexi. Fyx yrpiww wli¡¯w hsmrk wsqixlmrk xlex viuymviw liv exxirxmsr, wli nywx aexgliw Zme. Fixaiir xliq erh Qmoe, M¡¯q kpeh Omqm erh C evi wxygo mr xlex tevxc erh rsx Wxeef erh qi. Rsx xlex mx asyphr¡¯x fi mrxiviwxmrk, fyx M¡¯pp teww epp xli weqi. Lily Cycle 44 (Via) Via woke up with Nikki¡¯s arm around her. This wasn¡¯t the first time that¡¯d happened. Nikki moved around a lot in her sleep, and 99 times out of 100 sleep-snuggled something. Usually one of the velociraptors or a party member, but anything nearby was at risk. Via turned slightly, trying to move away from her. ¡°Erm, Nikki?¡± ¡°Five more minutes,¡± Nikki muttered, pulling her closer. She pressed her forehead on Via¡¯s back, hiding her face from the growing light. Via sighed, resigning herself to her fate. Nikki slowly moved her hand up to Via¡¯s shoulder, fingers trailing through her fur. The sensation made Via¡¯s heart rate go up. She twitched, then tried to roll onto her stomach, away from Nikki. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Nikki slid her hand down onto Via¡¯s chest, fingers curling. ¡°No, stay, Avi¡­¡± Via stopped. After a moment of hesitation, she took Nikki¡¯s hand and rolled closer to her. Nikki snuggled against her, sighing contentedly. This was fine. ***** Cycle 44 (Admin) Admin 6 took a beer from the cooler and sat down, listening to Admin 4¡¯s story of a Player who¡¯d managed to get a dagger stuck in his head for five floors. Stuff like that wasn¡¯t uncommon, but five floors was impressive. ¡°That¡¯s nothing compared to my week,¡± Admin 3 grumbled. ¡°I¡¯ve had to ban sending stones.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Admin 5 politely asked. Admin 3 took a sip of beer. ¡°The Floor 8 catgirls have been sending them down and organizing revolts.¡± Admin 6 sat up, hiding a smile behind his bottle. ¡°Seven cycles ago, everything in the dungeon started becoming organized. Like, insanely organized,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°Coordinating attacks, using sneak tactics, ambushing players, barricading exits, all that stuff. Couldn¡¯t figure it out, until a player last cycle sent me a message asking if he¡¯d received any award for the catgirl¡¯s mini quest. Apparently they¡¯ve been giving sending stones to players, telling them to drop them by the entrance of certain floors. Then the mobs would pick them up and coordinate.¡± ¡°So you took away the sending stones?¡± Admin 1 asked. ¡°Did that solve the problem?¡± Admin 6 knew the answer would be no. ¡°Nope!¡± Admin 3 laughed. ¡°Now the catgirls are sending messages on paper, written in code. So I¡¯ve told the players to not accept any quests from them. Not that that helps, because everything in the dungeon with half a brain has gone into hiding. The mobs no longer fight, and the NPCs don¡¯t show up to their shops.¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°What are you going to do about it?¡± Admin 4 asked. ¡°I¡¯ll have to force a reset,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°Hate to do it this late into the game, but the whole dungeon is on strike.¡± Admin 6 frowned. ¡°Have you tried talking to the catgirls?¡± ¡°Of course not,¡± Admin 3 said, mildly horrified. ¡°We all know you do,¡± Admin 2 said calmly. ¡°But it is against the rules.¡± ¡°Look, just message them and say ¡®hey, what do you want, cut it out¡¯,¡± Admin 6 shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s all you need to do. They¡¯ll probably reply ¡®we¡¯re super bored¡¯, so give them crap to play with. It¡¯s not a big deal.¡± ¡°It is a big deal, because it¡¯s against the rules,¡± Admin 3 growled. ¡°I know you think of NPCs and mobs as people, but-¡° ¡°They are people!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°They had lives, jobs, hobbies, friends, all that before being separated and shoved in here based on some arbitrary questionnaire!¡± ¡°Their place has been decided!¡± ¡°Yeah, without any say from them!¡± ¡°That would have taken too long!¡± ¡°Oh, like we didn¡¯t have the time?!" Admin 1 sat forwards. "No, we didn''t!" "A day or two to figure out a better set of questions wouldn''t have hurt," Admin 6 said. "Seriously, you act like they aren¡¯t human!¡± ¡°They aren¡¯t,¡± Admin 5 said softly. ¡°Not any more.¡± Admin 6 got up, glaring at them. ¡°Neither are most of the players, but you still treat them with respect.¡± He swiped his hand through the air, transporting himself back to his office. Cycle 44 (Staab) COUNTRY ROADS, TAKE ME HOME TO THE PLACE, I BELONG WEST VIRGINIA, MOUNTAIN MAMA TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. INTERNET ME MANQUE. ^ ^ v v < > < > B A (start) ¡­worth a shot. Cycle 44 (Y)
More sawdust 4¡¯2¡± Max at +8
37.4 Cans? 1 60
Agility, no sub 7 63
Stop collecting after 20. un-con-ven-tion-al-i-ty 14 70
Chupacabra The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Capybara 21 77
1986 Red Not Red 28 84
|||| || 35 93
Siobhan Gallagher ^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v 42 99
rosemary chives salt NO BASIL 49
mayo sour cream parsley thyme dill onion garlic black pepper 56 (:
Cycle 44 (Lewis) Vita regis repletur gaudiis et angustiis. Quid debent mei koboldi me ineptire pileis pro su constantibus partibus dare? Hic locus amo, pavimentum bonum est. Placida et amica, meo ductu. Vicini nostri, qui nobiscum loqui volunt, possunt, nostro auxilio et gaudio. Nulla bella sunt. Etiam in yetis nunc nos solum relinquatis. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Sed quid ad rem inepta corona? Cur quisque cogitat omnes hoc petasum optimum caput nobile meum? Si quando alium conveniam draconem, spero me non videbit hac tristi cono in capite meo. Cycle 44 (Gigi) Dear diary, The ducks have migrated from the north pond to the south pond. I don¡¯t know how their internal clocks work, but every six or so cycles they switch ponds. I guess migration instincts run deep. They run in me, too. Not as deep, but I do feel a desire to explore. I want to see what else is in the dungeon, but not enough to leave the floor by myself. I¡¯m still too afraid of being alone. So instead I¡¯ll just wait for the Players to arrive. The real Players, not the Floor 93 people. They¡¯ve already been through here. The real Players should be here soon, like tomorrow. Or maybe tonight. Maybe I should ask to join a group. Travel down with them, as a¡­ If I wanted to do that, I should start practicing spells and attacks. Or maybe just get stupid good armor and take damage for them? I¡¯d have to go with the last group to pass through, or else the inn would be unattended. I wonder how many Players there are? There used to be a lot a lot, but now there¡¯s just a bunch. Every so often there just becomes less of them. I should try counting. I might try talking to Alice again, see if she wants to explore. I know she¡¯s afraid of dying and being hurt, but there¡¯s¡­ precedent. The other catgirls did it, so we probably won¡¯t run into too many hostile things. If we do, we can always ask the other catgirls what to do about them. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Although, I don¡¯t really want to do that. I¡¯d like the pride of having figured it out by myself. Plus, that would give me something to do that wasn¡¯t duck related. Not that the ducks aren¡¯t adorable and worthy of 100% of my attention, but variety is the spice of life. If I left and were met with horrible, teeth-filled monsters, I¡¯m sure I would appreciate the ducks more. In other news, I¡¯ve decided to try making jewelry again. There are a couple metal jewelry things in the shop, and there are several types of rope and string available. All of it will be orange, because of course it will, but I think I¡¯ll be able to make some pretty things. Especially if I find some cool rocks to polish up. If jewelry making gets too technically difficult, I might just try macrame. I don¡¯t quite remember all the dozens of knot patterns, but I can draw them out if I figure it out once. Then I won¡¯t have to worry about forgetting. And I mean, I have an inn. I don¡¯t think anyone will ask where all the super cool giant macrame wall hangings came from all of a sudden, but they might. It would be cool to say ¡°oh, yeah, I made those. No big deal¡±. Speaking of art things, Cindy has been making origami again. It¡¯s good she has a hobby, but I really don¡¯t want to have the floor covered in paper frogs like some kind of divine plague again. Unless¡­ We could rig some of them to explode and put them all around the exit for the Players to deal with. That would be fun. I¡¯ll suggest it tomorrow. Gigi Cycle 44 (1) Dear Diary, I found you! I can¡¯t believe I just left you on my nightstand instead of putting you back into my inventory! That was really dumb of me. It won¡¯t happen again, I promise. I was just¡­ distracted. Wow, I was so distracted I didn¡¯t even finish my diary entry. Sorry about that. Anyways! New cycle! I¡¯m an otterkin! Or, I was before I got to this floor. And I will be again if I leave it. I like being an otter. Swimming is super fun. Fighting sharks and krakens became epic. They were like rawer and we were like nyoom and the kraken was like screech but we were too fast and agile. On the other hand, fur is warm. And some floors are jungle floors or volcano floors. Super hard to deal with unless you¡¯re Kimi. Or, unless you have red magic. Kimi would have had a hard time if she weren¡¯t the red one. I almost got a magical amulet to get heat resistance, but decided not to. Mika and Y got them. Via and I just drank more water. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Oh, Via is Via again. I think¡­ I think she got scared. Or something. I don¡¯t know. Doesn¡¯t matter. This cycle we decided to take all four velociraptors with us, to see for sure who¡¯s the best traveler. Lex is absolutely the best, and I think second best is Kelly. Via leans more towards Tim, but that¡¯s just because Tim clearly prefers her over everyone else. Sometimes pets are like that. But hey, at least we¡¯re agreed that Arby is the worst traveler. The other velociraptors have figured out that, when we bring out food, they are supposed to not attack. Arby has decided that bringing out food means he¡¯s supposed to sneak attack. Which, granted, isn¡¯t the absolute worst thing a raptor could do. But it¡¯s annoying and we don¡¯t really want to put up with that habit a lot. So from here on out, we¡¯ll be taking Lex and Tim with us. Except¡­ Next cycle, Mika and I are going to join Ox and his group. We want to know how real players act, how they think and do things. Via will go with Aya and the Sams, so she won¡¯t have to be alone. And they¡¯ll take the velociraptors. It¡¯ll be interesting, going with real Players. I¡¯m kinda nervous about it, which is why I can¡¯t go alone. Going with Mika will be fun. Y said he¡¯ll take over the diner for me, he¡¯ll do a good job. Or he¡¯ll accidentally blow up the building. It¡¯s 50/50 odds. Mika, meanwhile, is holding a tournament to see who can do a good job of replacing her for a cycle. On the kobold¡¯s floor, because there¡¯s no way they¡¯d miss that. A couple kobolds are joining, along with Staab, Samantha and Samuel. The winner will be turned into a catgirl or catboi till the end of the cycle, and will get to share Mika¡¯s inventory. The Admin agreed to it. Anyways, time for you to go back into my inventory. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 44 (2) Dear Diary, I get to bake a wedding cake! Kimi and Y are gonna get married in five days! There isn¡¯t really an Official dungeon marriage thingy, but Lewis said he could do a ceremony for them. And then there¡¯d be a party, and we all know how kobolds feel about parties. Some people (Lily) think that a true wedding can¡¯t be arranged in five days. But Lewis has the speech written out, I can absolutely cook enough in five days (with the help of Nat, Gin and Mar), and the kobolds arrange parties twice a week. Mika and her band have already been practicing music non-stop to record, so that won¡¯t be a problem. The only thing left is clothes. There happens to be a formal business suit in our clothing options, so that covers Y. Kimi originally wanted to wear a hoodie and jeans, but changed her mind to an actual dress when everyone was totally cool with it. Via is altering a dress for her, and says she¡¯ll be done in like a day and a half. It¡¯ll be on our floor. It¡¯ll be the first time Lewis leaves Floor 97. He¡¯s slightly too big for the entrances, so we asked the Admin what to do. The Admin responded by putting a race-changing potion into Kimi¡¯s shop. Anything that drinks it will become a neko for twelve hours, or until they die or the cycle resets. It works on players and NPCs. So Lewis will be humanoid for the first time in a loooong time. Should be interesting. And it¡¯ll be even more interesting to see how the Players react to being able to turn anything into a catgirl. Air elemental? Nope, catgirl. Hobgoblin? Nope, catgirl. Dragon boss? Nope, catgi-boi. It¡¯s kiiiiiinda super stupidly OP, so the Admin says he¡¯ll just say he¡¯s testing a new idea if anyone asks about it. And then next cycle get rid of it. I think it¡¯s kinda funny how the Admin just gives us anything we ask for now. I mean, thirty cycles ago if we¡¯d asked for a race-changing thing to let a dragon boss come visit our floor, we wouldn¡¯t have even gotten a reply. But now the Admin¡¯s like ¡°yeah, sure, whatever, don¡¯t let the Players find out¡±. I wonder what the most outrageous thing I could ask for is. Just to see if the Admin gives it to us. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. I¡¯d have to have a good reason for asking for it, though. Asking for a car that runs on milkshakes would be fun, but I don¡¯t need one of those. What do I need, that¡¯s just at the limit of logic¡­ Something to think about in my dreams. Goodnight, Dungeon!
The Admin tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash can and pulled a vanilla iced coffee out of his inventory. He was trying out this new ¡°flavoring¡± thing, and admitted to himself that it did make coffee taste more interesting. Not necessarily better, but more interesting. He got a notification and pulled the email up.
From: Nikki (Player 591)
To: Admin
Subject: Idea!
Hey! Sooooo I was thinking, and it might be super cool if we could get a potion to turn us into animals. Like, not neko or wolfkin or that alligator race. But a cat or wolf or alligator. Or more specifically, a tiger, dire wolf, shark, pterodactyl and dracoraptor. Maybe not a potion but an amulet or something? Like, a werewolf necklace would be super cool. Just something I was thinking about! Nikki
The Admin stared at the email, his brain briefly returning a 404. Why did she want to be a shark? Pterodactyl was completely out of the question; their stats were far too high. Tiger and dire wolf weren¡¯t too bad, but dracoraptor¡­ He sat back, imagining players rampaging through the dungeon as packs of raptors. He hit reply.
From: Admin
To: Nikki (Player 591)
Subject: Re: Idea!
Harpy eagle ok instead of pterodactyl?
Cycle 44 (3) Dear Diary, Yep, it¡¯s official. We can ask for anything and the Admin will give it to us. At some point in the future, I¡¯m gonna be able to turn into a dire wolf. And Via will fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a dinosaur. I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be next cycle, but the Admin didn¡¯t say ¡°no¡±. Well, he said no to pterodactyl. Which, yeah, they¡¯re probably too big. So I guess he won¡¯t agree to eeeeeverything, just most things. It¡¯s still funny. I don¡¯t know if I want to mention this semi-superpower to the others or not. On the one hand, it¡¯d be super fun to see what all we come up with to ask for. On the other hand, if the Admin figures out we¡¯re just asking for random stuff to see if he¡¯ll give it to us, that might make him stop granting any of our requests. Even the things we legit want and need. Anyways, Mika¡¯s blacksmith competition is ending tomorrow. The contestants have made some pretty cool stuff. It¡¯s obvious who has actual experience making things out of metal, and who just joined cuz it sounded fun. Most of the ¡°sounded fun¡± people have been eliminated, except for a guy named Tro. He has nooooo clue what he¡¯s doing, but is loving every minute of it. Since it¡¯s super exciting, he¡¯s actually not doing too bad of a job. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The other three people left are Samurai, a guy named Jef, and a girl named Emi. Samuel was disqualified after the ax-making contest, where his ax head flew off the stick it was on and killed one of the judges. Accidentally killing a judge is not recommended in a contest. Jef just seems like a guy who at one point in life made himself a full suit of armor. For fun. And Emi¡­ I don¡¯t know. I get the feeling maybe her dad did metalwork, and she learned by osmosis? Not because it was any goal of hers, but more like when she was 10 or so she was surprised to learn that not all kids spend their weekends building metal flower sculptures in the garage with their dad. Or something. Like how kids whose dads are super into cars just know how to assemble an engine by the time they¡¯re 8 and think it¡¯s weird that not everyone knows how. But I like her. I kinda hope she wins. We¡¯re going to hold one big marble race day after tomorrow. We have so many things planned, and have to get them all done in like a week. We don¡¯t know exactly when Players will be here, but if we¡¯re in the middle of something when they arrive it¡¯ll be awkward. The air elementals have promised to tell us when people show up to their floor, so it¡¯s not like we won¡¯t have a little time to prepare, but that¡¯s like¡­ half a day. It¡¯s best if we just cram everything in at once and then get to relax. Besides, it¡¯s not like anyone has an accounting job or something they have to do. We all have free time to do stuff. Might as well make the most of it! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 44 (Admin) (Again)
From: Admin
To: Emi (Item 930)
Subject: Head¡¯s up
Hey, I¡¯m about to pull you into a void cuz typing would take too long. Don¡¯t freak out.
The Admin watched as the winner of Mika¡¯s blacksmithing contest paused, swiping her hand through the air. He counted to fifteen, then pulled her into the Void. The kobold clasped her hands against her chest, looking around. The Admin waved. ¡°Hey,¡± he said. ¡°Congrats on winning the contest. I¡¯ve just got a couple things you need to give opinions on.¡± ¡°O- ok,¡± she said, nodding. He pulled up a screen, letting her see the back of it. ¡°You ok with Emmy as a name?¡± ¡°Sure. It¡­ was Emily, my friends called me Emmy,¡± she shrugged, looking off to her left. He typed that in. ¡°Hair color: white, pink or brown?¡± Her hands dropped to her sides. ¡°Can it be gold?¡± The Admin paused. ¡°I¡­ honestly don¡¯t know if the system would allow that.¡± ¡°Oh. I¡¯ll go with¡­ brown,¡± she decided. Stolen story; please report. ¡°Ok.¡± He typed her choice in, then sent the character creation screen to her. ¡°Race and color are locked in, adjust anything else you want. I¡¯m copying the base blacksmith¡¯s inventory into yours¡­ Do you have a key?¡± Emmy paused in scrolling through options to look at him. ¡°No, sorry.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll add keys to the blacksmith¡¯s inventory. Do you want to be put on Floor 93 at cycle start, as soon as a player gets there, or at some point in between?¡± She tapped her foot, thinking. ¡°If I have a key¡­ cycle start is fine.¡± ¡°Perfect.¡± He was about to say something else when she hit ¡°apply¡± on her screen. Gold magic shimmered around the kobold, turning her into a catgirl. Emmy twitched her ears, spinning slowly to look at her tail. She was¡­ beautiful. Even in default shorts and a t-shirt. The Admin closed his mouth, forcing his focus back onto the screen. ¡°You¡¯ll¡­¡± She turned her attention to him. Her faint smile and bright eyes made him forget what he was saying. He cleared his throat, looking back at the screen. ¡°Sorry. You¡¯ll be put in one of the inn rooms, since I don¡¯t know how Mika would feel about you taking over her house. Double-check with Nikki about cooking if you want to cook. I think that¡¯s about it; any questions?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Emmy said, smiling. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± He stared at her. No one had ever asked him that before. ¡°I¡­ A¡­ Admin. I¡¯m¡­ Administrator 6.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have a name other than that?¡± she asked. It was taboo. It was against the rules. It was forbidden. But then everything about this conversation was forbidden. He was breaking at least three rules here. And refusing to give his name to a beautiful woman seemed¡­ silly. ¡°Calvin,¡± he muttered, half-expecting the Void to turn red and the Director to appear. ¡°Calvin,¡± she repeated, memorizing it. ¡°A good name.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± he said awkwardly, dismissing the screens. ¡°Anything else?¡± Emmy tapped her foot again, thinking. ¡°Not for now. I might have some questions after I move to Floor 93, but for now I¡¯m good.¡± She grinned. ¡°How do I look?¡± He smiled. ¡°If you have any problems, don¡¯t hesitate to contact me.¡± With a flick of his wrist, she was back to being a kobold on Floor 97. Cycle 44 (4) Dear Diary, Iiiiit¡¯s been a couple days. Being super busy has made me super tired, who would have guessed? So, to go in order: Emi won the blacksmith contest. Mika showed her around the shop, and I told her to use the diner if she¡¯s on the floor alone. I¡¯m giving Y a bunch of food, but enough things stay in the kitchen that she could make herself a hamburger or something. And she has the kobold¡¯s inventory, which comes with a couple good food things. Samantha won the marble race, Via came in second, and Lily third. I was fifth. It was fun. Oh! The walkway! When they set up the marble track, Mika and Kimi found out it is higher than what we built! I knew it! I don¡¯t know why or how, but it¡¯s a solid three feet above where it used to be. Interesting. Then I baked, and baked, and baked. Nat came up to help, along with Gin and Mar, and we made a feast for the ages. I¡¯m sure thirty cycles from now the kobolds are gonna remember all the food we made. And then yesterday was Kimi and Y¡¯s wedding! It was lovely. Y looked mildly feral, Kimi looked like she wanted to set the decorations on fire, and Lewis looked uncomfortable as a biped. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I think he¡¯s spent so long as a giant dragon that being normal-sized and human-ish again felt weird. He did a good job, though. The ceremony lasted like ten minutes, and then the party lasted like ten hours. There was music, dancing, drinking, eating, and absolutely zero speeches. Someone tried to give a speech and Kimi set her on fire. Just a little bit on fire, not enough to seriously hurt, but enough to get the message across. The only person who didn¡¯t think it was an epic day was Lilly. She¡¯s gonna spend a whole cycle preparing for her wedding, and have every detail worked out. She wants something super elegant and formal. Which, yeah, she would. But then she¡¯s kinda elegant and formal in everything, while Kimi hates formality. If someone had forced Kimi into a traditional type formal wedding, she would have been miserable. While making Lilly¡¯s wedding like the one yesterday would infuriate her. But anyways, pretty much everyone woke up today with a hangover. At like noon. I don¡¯t know what the kobolds did, but I spent all day cleaning up. Everything took place in the plaza, so I didn¡¯t have to clean up my diner too bad, just tidy up the kitchen and where we kept the food. And then I helped clean up the plaza. It¡¯s not perfect, but it¡¯s clean enough that the Players won¡¯t notice. Probably. If they do, the Admin can deal with it. Anyways, I get to relax for the next day or two! Yay! I plan on doing absolutely nothing tomorrow. Unless the Players show up, in which case I¡¯ll have to feed them, but that won¡¯t be too bad. It¡¯ll just be like half an hour of work, and then back to relaxing. And the relaxing will start¡­ Now! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 44 (5) Dear Diary, Players got here this afternoon at like five. A group of four guys who dress as vikings for some reason. Not real vikings, movie vikings. With like blue paint on their faces and horned helmets and stuff. Anyways, one of them kiiiiinda recognized me? But he didn¡¯t say anything, so it¡¯s cool. They¡¯re at the inn right now, meaning they¡¯ll have breakfast here. Hopefully by then the guy will have convinced himself that a Player working at a diner is silly, and won¡¯t think he recognized me. Although I¡¯m still not sure why it¡¯d be so bad if they did recognize us. Other than just a feeling deep in my bones that it¡¯d be wrong. I think the Admin has pretty much given up on keeping Players and NPCs separate, though. Or at least stopped trying to convince Players that non-players aren¡¯t people. Oh, Lewis asked Kimi for a couple dozen of the temp race-changing potions. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ll stay in his inventory after the cycle resets, but it would be cool if they did. He deserves a couple days of being a person instead of a giant dragon. Would be a good vacation, I think. Or at least a change of pace. Everyone needs a change of pace once in a while. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. I don¡¯t know if anyone else asked for spare potions. Some people really like being kobolds, and some people hate it. Y hated it. Not strongly, but enough that he said he isn¡¯t going to become one when we get to that point in our ¡°try every race¡± thing. Oh, we decided (when he brought that up) that we¡¯d give the option that cycle of being either a kobold or a piscine. The super ugly Lovcraftian fish monster race. Lily aaaaaabsolutely refuses to be something that ugly, which I can¡¯t blame her for. I don¡¯t really want to be one of those things either, so I¡¯ll go with kobold that cycle. Well, it¡¯ll be Cycle 52, maybe I¡¯ll have changed my mind by then. Or maybe we¡¯ll have decided no one wants to be a fish monster, and will swap that out for¡­ what¡¯s the alligator race called? Pretty sure it¡¯s sobek. Or maybe we¡¯ll mix kobold in with goblin, since they¡¯re both small races. And honestly the alligator race has cool stats that would be fun to try. Not that I need a 20% boost to magic, and a fast swimming speed, but it sounds fun. Next cycle we¡¯re going to be dwarves. I¡¯m not sure how I¡¯ll feel about having a beard, especially if it becomes a green beard. I might have to go back to a normal hair color for that cycle. Like brown. I don¡¯t even think dark, forest green would look good. Or at least, it might be too weird for me to handle. It¡¯ll pain my soul to have brown hair again, but sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of experimentation. Or something. More Players just got here, I have to go cook! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (1) A note from the Admin: Hey, this cycle I¡¯m implementing shared inventories. There are three variations, which can be used all at once if you want. Party Inventory: When you form a party, you¡¯ll be asked if you want to have a party inventory. This will be accessible by all players in the party. Any time you kill a monster or find a box of loot, everything will immediately go into the party inventory. No dropping. To one side of the inventory will be a list of who took what out, visible by all. Family Inventory: This is an inventory shareable by up to a dozen people, each of whom will have to be specifically invited in by the inventory creator. If you open the family inventory to buy things, certain items will be discounted. To one side will be a list of who put what in and who took what out, visible by all. Spousal Inventory: Yes, marriage, shareable by two people. When you create this inventory, each person will get a ring they must wear to access it. If you have over 50 of any given item, the surplus will automatically go to the shared inventory. This includes gold. When the cycle resets, two random magical items or weapons will stay in this inventory. I will not be responding to complaints of things stolen through shared inventories, so share responsibly. Admin ***** Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Dear Diary, Well, I was about to sit down and write when the cycle reset. That¡¯s annoying. And since cycle reset always puts us at dawn, technically two days have passed. Meaning! I¡¯m a dwarf now! I¡¯ve got a beard! I changed my hair color to be brown, so it¡¯s not a green beard. Everyone else kept their regular hair colors except Lily, who made it a super pale purple, and Mika, who went with an auburn red color. Mika is fighting with two axes this cycle, instead of her usual scimitars. I¡¯ve still got my bonk stick. And, slightly more importantly, I¡¯m in a party with Mika, Ox, Tig and Larissa. Mika and I are on a mission to learn how Real Players do things. So far it¡¯s mostly ¡°kill everything to level up fast¡±, which is about what I expected. I¡¯m sorry that I¡¯m helping kill people instead of giving them food, so I guess it¡¯s a good thing I¡¯m kinda disguised by not having green hair. We¡¯re going through the floors super slow, though. I¡¯m glad I¡¯m only gonna join Ox¡¯s team once, cuz it would get suuuuuper boring. And not being able to cook at all¡­ hurts my soul. I offered to cook, but they were all like ¡°nah, thanks, we¡¯ve got jerky in our inventories¡±. I know they didn¡¯t mean to insult me, but it still hurt. Mika said she¡¯d eat something if I cooked, but by that time I was already sad and just brought out sushi. With pickled ginger and wasabi, of course. Y¡¯no, it¡¯ll never cease to amaze me when people say they¡¯ve never had wasabi before. When they say they don¡¯t know what it is. I think Tig is 100% convinced I did something to it and am trying to kill him. I¡¯m not. That¡¯s just how it is and we told him to not eat a whole spoonful. Anyways, I should sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (2) Dear Diary, Yep, the group mentality is ¡°kill everything¡±. They say that after Floor 30 they won¡¯t focus on clearing every floor, so things will go faster. But it¡¯s been two days and we¡¯re on Floor 8. Usually by this time I¡¯m used to being on a catgirl floor, but nope. Not yet. Have to kill everything that moves, even if it¡¯s hiding. On the plus side, we know how to find good loot boxes now. Before, we were only vaguely aware they existed, cuz of the one Aya found with the ants. But turns out, there are lots of them! With really good stuff inside! Nothing as good as my bonk stick, but Ox says anything we don¡¯t need or want we can sell. Then we use the money to buy stuff we do want. Oh! We have a Party Inventory! It¡¯s super helpful, and saves time looking for stuff monsters dropped. Everything just instantly goes there, and we move on. And, since it¡¯s all in one place, we can sell it all in one go and divide the money evenly. I feel like as soon as we get to the catgirl¡¯s floor, I¡¯m gonna be stupid rich. There are also family inventories, which I might suggest we make. That way I can give everyone ranch balls and other food for NPCs even if we aren¡¯t in the same party. Not quite sure what else we¡¯d use it for, but the Admin said it gives discounts. And I guess if someone wanted some stupid expensive item early on, we could all put random things into the inventory for them. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The last shared inventory is basically just a ¡°you¡¯re married now¡± inventory. It comes with rings. Not fancy rings, just gold bands, but Mika said a blacksmith should be able to etch some kind of design into it. I don¡¯t want to say that the Admin made shared inventories just because Kimi and Y got married, but the timing sure is convenient. The other perk that the marriage inventory thing gives is that it keeps two random magic things in it when the cycle resets. Mika kinda wants to get one just to keep both of her magic scimitars. I understand that. There¡¯s nothing specific I¡¯d like to keep, but I get it. Starting out with extra magic stuff would be an advantage, even if you have to technically marry someone to get it. I don¡¯t know who Mika would marry, though. Oh, Larissa asked how we got so strong. we didn¡¯t really know what to say, since we¡¯re not sure how the Admin would feel about us telling everyone we¡¯re really NPC¡¯s. Mika said we found an enchanted magical item that made something go wrong on a cycle reset once. Apparently that¡¯s known as ¡°glitching¡±, and is a perfectly valid reason! Woo! So now if anyone ever asks how our levels are so high, we can just say a magic item glitched us. It¡¯s always good to have valid-sounding reasons for things. Even if they are totally made up. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (3) Dear Diary, We. Fought. All day. We¡¯re. On. Floor 14. Apparently we¡¯re going super fast! We¡¯re clearing floors and leveling up like nobody¡¯s business! Ox, Tig and Larissa are super happy with our progress! Meanwhile, Mika and I are like ¡°aaaaargh we¡¯re going sooooo slow!!!¡± Honestly, at this point we¡¯re debating bailing on them and going down on our own. I mean, was it necessary to scout Floor 12 to make sure every single mosquito was dead? And Floor 10 is a water floor, meaning we had to kill a bunch of sharks. We basically spent two hours fishing. Just to make sure we got them all. But hey, at least we got to a catgirl floor. Finally. We get a nice, soft bed, and¡­ cheap diner food. Goodie. I don¡¯t even have the energy to cook tonight, and I don¡¯t know how I¡¯d do even if I wanted to. Being three feet tall kinda sucks sometimes. In other news, we were able to sell all the stuff we picked up from killing literally everything. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever had this much gold. I gave a lot of it to Mika so she could buy better axes and enchant them. Larissa thought that was weird, how I just gave money to Mika without demanding she pay it back somehow. But, if Mika has better weapons, she¡¯ll be able to kill things faster. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. If she kills things faster, we get to move to the next floor faster. Moving to the next floor is pretty much the only thing I care about at this point. So anything that helps the team kill faster, I¡¯m gonna do it. I¡¯m glad it¡¯s just Mika and me with the real Players. Kimi and Y would have become impatient and left by now. Staab probably would have done ok, but Lily would have been stupid bored. Aya and Tig would have absolutely killed each other. The Sams¡­ Well, Samantha would have been ok here. But Samuel and Samurai probably would have caused trouble. And Via just wouldn¡¯t have been able to handle all the killing. Mika is getting a little bored, same as me, but she agrees it¡¯s important to understand how these people think. So we¡¯ll try to stay with the Players as long as we can. In other news, I think I¡¯m gonna start a shared Family Inventory. Unless someone beats me to it. Being able to share stuff with my friends would be super nice, even if we¡¯re like a dozen floors behind them or something. And if I wanted to send someone a message, I could just write them a letter. ¡­Wait. We can basically email the Admin. There¡¯s a message system. Can we message other people, too? ¡­ HOLY CRAP WE CAN! Not just with the name, we need a number with it, but we can! I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m just now realizing this! I mean, we always used sending stones to talk to people, and that was fine until we became Players and the sending stones got taken away. But if we knew the name and number of all our friends, we wouldn¡¯t need sending stones! I feel like this is a total ¡°duh¡± moment. Ok, I need to start a phone book of everyone in the dungeon. But not if we¡¯re killing everyone we meet. ¡­I need to figure out Lily¡¯s number. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (4) Via sighed, doodling with the grease dripping off her burger. The burger was fine, but Nikki¡¯s burgers were better. She missed being in a party with the chef. Samuel slid into the booth across from her and grinned. ¡°You ok?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Via said, sitting up. ¡°Why?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been looking down lately,¡± he shrugged. ¡°Not that I know anything, but seems to me you miss Nikki.¡± Via focused on a fry. ¡°Well, I mean, not- kinda. Just cuz we¡¯re usually together. No real reason.¡± Samuel wasn¡¯t watching her. ¡°Have you ever bought one of everything at the store?¡± he asked. ¡°What? No? Why?¡± ¡°We have extra cash now, so I tried it. They¡¯ve got some super random stuff in there.¡± He pulled a flute out of his inventory. ¡°Like this snake charming flute. Very limited use. Or this!¡± He put a can of wolf repellent on the table. ¡°Specific, probably works on other things, but still random.¡± He pulled out a sock. ¡°Why are socks sold individually instead of in pairs? We may never know. And that¡¯s not even getting to the potions.¡± He pulled three vials out of his inventory and tossed them to Via. ¡°Seriously, it¡¯s like the Admin drunk-adds things. And once it exists he¡¯ll never get rid of it.¡± ¡°Getting rid of things might make people complain,¡± Via said. ¡°I guess,¡± Samuel said, getting up. ¡°Still random, though. I¡¯m heading to the inn, see you tomorrow.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Oh, bye,¡± she said, confused. She looked at the vials in her hand. One made hair grow super fast. One made things twice as heavy. And the last¡­ was a gender-swap potion. ¡°Oh.¡± ***** Dear Diary, I gave up trying to figure out Lily¡¯s number and just messaged the Admin to ask what it was. Then I messaged her and told her about how messaging works and that we need to start a phone book. I think she thinks I asked her to do it because she started a book club. But I asked her because she¡¯s good at talking to people. She¡¯s¡­ official. Not super formal, but she just looks like the type of person who would compile a phone book. Lilly looks like a librarian. Basically. Anyways, she said she¡¯d do it. And we know non-magical things get left in our inventories when the cycle resets, so next cycle we should be able to message whoever we want! Well, anything that costs a gold and up gets taken out, and all money gets taken out. So we¡¯re left with cheap, useless crap. Someone tried to have like a thousand bronze daggers in their inventory at cycle reset once, so we¡¯re only allowed 50 of any item. But a phone book shouldn¡¯t be magical or expensive, and I only need one, so I¡¯m good! In other news, we¡¯re still going slow. We¡¯re on Floor 18. Ox says since we¡¯re a bigger group than he¡¯s used to, they¡¯re leveling up slower than usual. I¡¯d kill for some kind of cheat code to be like ¡°here! You¡¯re Level 100 in everything now! Let¡¯s go!¡± But I guess that would defeat the purpose of this whole thing. Oh well. I¡¯ll survive. Hopefully. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (5) Dear Diary, Tig is slowly warming up to us. That¡¯s good. He¡¯s still kinda mad about the whole ¡°us having trapped him and threatened him into giving us his key¡± thing, but only when he remembers to be. He doesn¡¯t really seem like a super friendly guy anyways, but that¡¯s ok. Not everyone has to be an extrovert. Larissa is cool. Her personality is kinda like Samurai¡¯s, but if Samurai had never been part of a hive mind. She¡¯s a good fighter, and is the best at magic stuff. And Ox¡­ Ox is big, kinda dumb, optimistic, aaaand kinda cute. He flirts with Mika and me. Mika is annoyed by it, but Larissa says to ignore him and he¡¯ll stop. I don¡¯t know if I want to ignore him. On the one hand, it¡¯s fun. On the other hand, if I flirt back and it becomes a thing, he might want me to stay in the party more cycles. Which, I¡¯d rather die than do that. Plus I really need to talk to Via about¡­ things¡­ that are complicated¡­ I¡¯m not really sure¡­ Yeah, things are complicated. I hate drama. I hate it when drama happens to my friends, and I hate it more when it happens to me. Not that it¡¯s happened yet, but I suspect drama is going to be in my near future. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. OH! On a completely unrelated subject that I¡¯m totally not bringing up cuz I don¡¯t want to talk about that other thing, there were only two velociraptors on Floor 17! Lex and Tim were gone, so Via must have taken them. I put my foot down about killing Arby and Kelly; I don¡¯t care how much XP they give, no one gets to kill my raptors on my watch. Especially since they recognized me even though I¡¯m a dwarf and don¡¯t have green hair. I felt kinda bad about the spinosaurus. I mean, he always runs away when we try to feed him. We¡¯ve sloooooowly started to gain his trust, but he is kinda the Boss on this floor. If Players come down and kill one thing, it¡¯s gonna be him. So I don¡¯t want to make him think that everyone will be his friend if only he¡¯d let them. But killing him still felt bad. Anyways, I think I¡¯m going to try and learn more attack spells. Ox says having a dedicated healer in the group is good, but I know we could get through floors faster if I could attack. I¡¯ve been using my sleep spell a lot, but you don¡¯t get XP for putting an enemy to sleep. And the recharge time feels like forever when we¡¯re in the middle of a fight. There¡¯s a poison dart spell that¡¯s green, and an AOE acid spell. I don¡¯t know if I want to try and level up both of them, or focus on one. If I end up focusing on one, it¡¯ll be the poison dart one. I don¡¯t want to end up accidentally putting acid all over Tig. He¡¯d say it was on purpose. Which, eventually, it might be. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (Admin) The Admin watched a solo player beat off mosquitoes, stepping closer to quicksand. He¡¯d already decided who he¡¯d send to the Master Dungeon, but watching the other Players fail made him feel better about his choice. Besides, it made for a break in fiddling with code. He got a notification and absently pulled the message open, watching the Player trip into a carnivorous plant.
To: Admin
From: Emmy (Item 930)
Subject: Dinner
Hey, it¡¯s getting kinda lonely here by myself, want to join me for dinner tonight? At 7?
The Admin panicked, immediately deleting the message. And then he emptied his trash folder. He looked behind him, making absolutely sure no one had seen that. Formal communications with NPCs were frowned upon, but allowed. To a degree. Technically. That was not a formal communication. The Admin got to his feet, pacing back and forth in his office. Was he going too far? The last dozen or so messages between him and the catgirls had been anything but formal. But, they were Players now. So that was acceptable. Maybe? Was it? He¡¯d have to go through them, checking how familiar he was getting with them. And all the NPCs. He sat down again, looking through his recent messages. His eyes strayed to the ¡°compose¡± button. Emmy deserved an answer. It would be rude to not reply. Obviously he¡¯d have to refuse. Obviously. Having dinner with an¡­ incredibly pretty¡­ surprisingly strong¡­ smart and creative¡­ NPC was out of the question. Then again, he hadn¡¯t eaten real food in months. There wasn¡¯t really a point. It could be argued that he was losing his humanity, not being able to remember how a fork is used. Having dinner with anyone was a good idea. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Yes. Therefore, he would accept the offer. In an effort to remain human. He opened a new message.
To: Emmy (Item 930)
From: Admin
Subject: (empty)
I would love to
Too formal.
Sure!
Too informal.
Sounds like a da
Was it a date? Technically¡­ possibly. He shouldn¡¯t use that word, though.
Certainly
Just no.
Why noooaaarghwhausbqiqqpdmxshysuqbdspwphfy
He slammed his forehead on the keyboard.
I EAT FOOD, YES.
This was impossible. He took a deep breath.
Not sure how entertaining I can be, but I¡¯ll do my best. At 7.
Before he could panic again, he hit ¡°send¡± and immediately erased the message from his outbox. What was he doing? What was he doing, what was he doing? If he had dinner with an NPC¡­ If anyone found out¡­ If¡­ If she sent him more messages, and he kept answering¡­ This could get bad. This could get very bad. ¡­As bad as making eleven NPCs Players and sending them to the Master Dungeon with the goal of destroying everything the Director set up? No. Dinner with an NPC at her invitation was nowhere near that bad. But it was more time-consuming. The more time he spent with her, the bigger the chance he¡¯d get caught and all his plans would unravel. So this could be the only time. He¡¯d have to tell her how dangerous it was. Or otherwise imply that dinner could never happen again. Right. This would be a one-time mini vacation from work. To remind himself what eating was like. And that¡¯s all. Cycle 45 (6) Dear Diary, It¡¯s been a full week. Somehow it feels like a year, but it¡¯s only been a week. We¡¯re only on Floor 28. You know that saying, you never know what you have until you lose it? Or something like that. Well, I now know that being able to beat more than six floors a day is amazingly impressive! I miss the days when we just walked through the dungeon like nothing could hurt us, cuz nothing can. I miss giving people food instead of killing them. I miss my friends. But that¡¯s ok! Cuz Mika and I are learning a lot about how to be a Real Player! We¡¯re learning so much. I¡¯M BORED. But I¡¯m gonna stick it out and not abandon the party just to get home quicker. I can do this! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Dear Diary, I¡¯M STILL BORED. How do Players do this cycle after cycle without going insane??? But hey, the poison dart spell means I¡¯m actively participating in fights more. And we¡¯ve passed Floor 30, so we¡¯re going a liiiiitle faster than we were before. I just have to stay optimistic! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Dear Diary, If Tig says Mika or I caught him in an AOE spell on purpose one more time I¡¯m gonna murder him for real. Just once. I mean, I know how to use knives, I¡¯m a chef. I know how to cut up meat. It¡¯s all in the technique. And I have teleport while he doesn¡¯t. Mika would help, too. Just once more¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon.
Dear Diary, I never really learned how to swim. I kinda learned when we were otterkin, but that doesn¡¯t count. Swimming as an anthropomorphized semi-aquatic creature is not the same as swimming as a human. Or catgirl. Or dwarf. Ox said he¡¯d teach me someday, but only if I promised to go skinny dipping with him. I don¡¯t know if he was joking or not, but either way I said no. Anyways, dwarf beards get waterlogged and make it very hard to swim. Today I was reminded that being eaten by a shark is painful. Slimes are still worse, though. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Dear Diary, I¡¯m still bored, but I think I¡¯m getting used to it. I¡¯m becoming numb to the boredom. It¡¯s just a state of being. How many days has it been in this cycle? Will this cycle ever end? I need to get into the habit of writing more again, the last couple entries have been super short. So! What¡¯s been going on? ¡­ Not much. Every day is the same as the last. I¡¯m really nervous about what¡¯ll happen if we get sent to a different dungeon now. Except then I¡¯ll get to cook for people again. I miss cooking for lots of people. ¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon.
Dear Diary, Wellp, I did it. I stabbed Tig to death. And yes, I did mean to do it! Not like the past dozen times Mika or I have accidentally done something to mildly inconvenience him! Was it the ¡°right¡± thing to do? Probably not. Will he stop complaining? Hopefully! Cuz now he knows, we don¡¯t play around! If we want to hurt someone, we aren¡¯t sneaky or subtle about it! We never have been! And we never will be! Also, I know how to use knives. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (7) Dear Diary, We made it to Floor 60! It¡¯s sad that it took us this long to get here. When we showed up, Gigi wasn¡¯t around. She had to be called back with one of the other catgirls, they were visiting Floor 63. On the one hand, she almost got caught, which is bad. On the other hand, this means more catgirls are exploring! I approve of that. Staying on one floor your whole life is bad. Going out exploring is good, even if it hurts sometimes. Yeah, there are people out there like the yetis and sirens, but there are also party kobolds and fluffy wolves! It¡¯s worth it for the fluffy wolves. In other news, Tig has been nicer today. No more snide comments about us secretly wanting to murder him! Yay! A part of me feels bad about stabbing him, but it¡¯s important to be able to trust your party members. Thankfully we don¡¯t have any issues with Ox or Larissa. The catgirls here say everyone else passed by a while back. Which, yeah. They would have. We¡¯re going super slow. We¡¯re so slow that one player got here while we were eating dinner. I¡¯ve never been on a floor when other people show up. Even when I was on the pacifist run with Via, we were still way ahead of everyone else. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I think tomorrow I¡¯m gonna be like ¡°hey, I¡¯ve got this super cool trick, called Level 100 Group Teleport. Let¡¯s go!¡± Mika might not be super happy about that, but I don¡¯t care at this point. I just want to get home. And after Floor 93 I¡¯ll go back to being a Normal Player. Well, after Floor 94. Because no one gets to hurt my doggos. Especially not Siri, who is still best girl. Or Floofles. Or Bear, or Balto, or Linda, or Wolfie McWolfpants. I wonder if the dracoraptors will recognize me. The velociraptors did, but they are pretty different. The velociraptors might have recognized me by smell, and if the dracoraptors have good smell they¡¯d also recognize me. Then again, the dracoraptors are sometimes mean just cuz they think it¡¯s funny. Like, we all know they know what a saddle is now. But some days they¡¯re like ¡°what is this strange and horrible thing? We must rip it to shreds before it attacks us!¡± And no, it isn¡¯t random memory loss, because they happily come up to Via and me and bite at the air where my inventory screen is. My inventory screen, which they can¡¯t see. So yeah, when we get down there, there¡¯s a 50/50 chance they¡¯ll attack us regardless of if they recognize me or not. I hope they don¡¯t attack Via for not having food for them. I don¡¯t think they will, and she can give them sushi, but again there¡¯s always a chance. ¡­I hope Via¡¯s doing ok. I mean, she¡¯s probably fine. She¡¯s with Aya and the Sams, they¡¯ll take care of her. But I miss her. This is the first cycle we¡¯ve been in different groups. I hope everyone else is doing ok, too. Lily had better be compiling that phone book. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (8) Dear Diary, No one was happy about my ¡°teleport through floors¡± idea. If we don¡¯t battle through the floors, we don¡¯t get XP. If we don¡¯t get XP, we won¡¯t be strong enough to beat the lower floors. If we aren¡¯t strong enough to beat the lower floors, we won¡¯t be able to push the button. And that would be bad. I can do this. Really. Honest. I¡¯ll just focus on the fun things, like¡­ llllllike¡­¡­ I¡¯ll think of them eventually. Oh well. Goodnight, Dungeon!
The Admin slowly sipped iced coffee, staring at the notification.
From: Emmy (Item 930)
To: Admin
Subject: (empty)
Hi
That was it. The entire message. There wasn¡¯t just a red flag in his mind, there was a whole marching band carrying red flags parading through his brain. He shouldn¡¯t reply. What was there to reply to? He should just delete the message and forget it had ever been sent. Besides, why would Emmy want to talk to him? The only possible reason was because he was The Admin. As far as she knew, he controlled everything. So if she smiled and flirted a bit, she might think she could ask for anything and he¡¯d give it to her. That was the only reason. The Admin was aware he wasn¡¯t particularly good-looking, and his personality didn¡¯t make up for it. He was a glass-half-empty guy who was only an administrator because there¡¯d been a sudden shortage and he knew how the system worked. No one could possibly want to spend time with him. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡­Right? ¡­ ¡­Right. He was about to delete the message when Emmy sent him a second one.
Sorry, sent that last message early. Arm was trapped. So, I was looking at the steel lotus thing the catgirls put between the buildings, and noticed the middle was a pressure plate. Couldn¡¯t figure out what it did exactly, so I reached in and pushed it down. I¡¯m extremely stuck now. Kinda upside-down. Got my arm out, but my butt is very much not moving. Must say, Mika is a master at building traps. I will never get out on my own. Please help?
The Admin put his coffee down, took a deep breath, and teleported himself to the plaza on Floor 93. He turned slowly, looking between the buildings, and spotted the glorified bear trap. Sure enough, Emmy¡¯s tail and legs were sticking out the top. He walked over, smiling. ¡°Trapped?¡± Emmy¡¯s tail twitched, and she kicked her feet back and forth a few times. ¡°Yep!¡± she called. ¡°Comfortable?¡± he asked, knocking on a steel petal. ¡°Not particularly,¡± she answered. ¡°Why does this exist?¡± ¡°The catgirls used it to trap a Player and extort a key out of him,¡± the Admin said, pulling the petal down. He smiled through the gap at her. ¡°Hello, Emmy.¡± She smiled back, her arm and ears pressed against the pressure plate. ¡°Hi, Calvin.¡± He immediately looked away, pulling on another petal. ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know how to un-trap this thing.¡± ¡°I mean, why does it still exist?¡± Emmy asked, struggling. ¡°Couldn¡¯t you have gotten rid of it after they used it?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Not really. If someone modifies a thing and leaves it in a certain area, I don¡¯t get rid of it. Like your kobold town area. This whole floor qualifies as the catgirl¡¯s ¡®area¡¯, and this is very much a modified thing.¡± ¡°So basically you¡¯re saying poofing it out of existence would be rude.¡± ¡°Basically.¡± She sighed. ¡°Could you poof it into being five feet away?¡± The Admin pulled up a screen. ¡°No, but I could poof you into the middle of the plaza.¡± ¡°Do that, please.¡± He nodded, hit a few buttons, and stepped back as the lotus petals fell flat. Emmy appeared behind him, on her feet. ¡°I¡¯ll admit, I half expected to land on my head,¡± she said, stretching. The Admin turned to face her, and his brain shorted out. She¡¯d changed shorts and t-shirt for a tight camisole and khaki pants that hung low on her hips. He blinked, glancing away as his mind rebooted. ¡°No, default respawn position is always standing.¡± She laughed softly. ¡°Well¡­ thanks for saving me. As long as you¡¯re here, want to join me for lunch?¡± No. He didn¡¯t. That was a bad idea. He had work and iced coffee waiting in his office. He shouldn¡¯t waste time with¡­ Emmy smiled just a little bit wider. The Admin smiled back. ¡°I do, yes.¡± Cycle 45 (9) Dear Diary, Well, I gave up. I¡¯m on my own now, teleporting through the floors. It is such a relief to do this again. It feels like I¡¯m actually making progress, and will get home before I die of old age! I don¡¯t have to heal anyone, I don¡¯t have to wait for anyone, and I can talk to people instead of whacking them with a stick! Yay! I haven¡¯t decided on if I¡¯ll wait for the party on the next catgirl floor or not. ¡­Actually, scratch that, I¡¯ll wait for them at home. I just¡­ Mika is having fun. She gets along with Larissa super well. Tig has stopped being suspicious of us, so that¡¯s great. And Ox is Ox. So Mika can stay with them and have fun. She can learn all about how Real Players think just fine on her own. Good for her. But I¡­ don¡¯t want to. I thought it was a good idea, but it wasn¡¯t. It kinda was, but not for me. I mean, in principle it¡¯s a good idea. I feel like the Admin would approve. But personally, for me, not good. ¡­ ¡­So, we were fighting. We were in a maze with eyebats and slimes, trying to not be petrified or dissolved. The usual. I don¡¯t mind killing slimes, and my sleep spell works on eyebats. Should be pretty easy. Somehow, Ox and I got separated from the rest of the group. It¡¯s a maze, it¡¯s kinda dark, and we were running from an ice slime. It¡¯s a thing that can happen. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Ox was like ¡°don¡¯t worry, you¡¯re perfectly safe with me!¡± And I¡¯m like ¡°I¡¯m perfectly safe alone, I have ranch dressing.¡± Which, yes, in retrospect that does sound kinda odd. But it makes sense if you know slimes hate ranch dressing! Anyways, he laughed, and then he picked me up and kissed me. Which was really annoying. I mean, he should have been focusing on, I don¡¯t know, not dying. Or finding the others! Or finding the exit! I mean, I¡¯m still trying to figure out what to do about the last person who kissed me, I can¡¯t deal with another right now! So yeah, I cast sleep on him then made my way to the exit. As soon as I got to the stairs I removed myself from the party and started teleporting. I miss being a catgirl. Being over five feet tall and having claws would have been super nice. It¡¯s nice in general. I can¡¯t wait to get home. And¡­ I miss Avi. I have Via¡¯s player number now, Lily sent me everyone¡¯s number, but I don¡¯t know what to say. Especially not in a message. Being able to look someone in the eye is an important part of¡­ important conversations. I¡¯ll be home soon. That¡¯ll be good. I might have to spend tomorrow cooking, though. I¡¯m on Floor 73, and Floor 75 is a catgirl floor. If I get there early, I can ask to borrow the diner and make all the food I need for everyone between here and Floor 93. And a day of cooking will help. Yeah. I¡¯ll do that. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 45 (10) Dear Diary, Cooking is good. Being able to just take over a kitchen and make like a hundred dishes is epic. The diner owner, Sally, helped me cook all day. She said she likes being a helper, but cooking all on her own and coming up with new stuff is kinda stressful. I get that; Mar is the same way. So she doesn¡¯t have any really new recipes. She said she¡¯s been making stuff from the cookbook Nat and Gin made, and is having a great time. It makes me happy to know people are using the cookbook. Nat and Gin will be happy, too. They put a lot of work into writing it, and should be proud. Oh, Sally said that the others got here and stayed a couple days. They only left day before yesterday. It sounds like they¡¯re trying to spend time with all the catgirls, and get to know them. Which is a good idea, I think. I kinda wish there was a way we could get all the catgirls from all the floors in one place and have a big party. That would be super fun. But it¡¯s not likely. Maybe after Cycle 100, when there aren¡¯t any Players around, we can all go to whatever floor we want. Wait, no, we¡¯ll be in the other dungeon. So that won¡¯t work. Maybe after we¡¯re done with that other dungeon? But we don¡¯t know what will happen after that. I guess a big catgirl party will never happen. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Actually, I should bring it up with Lewis and the kobolds. The kobolds know how to throw a party, so they might have some ideas on how to make a multi-floor party happen. And Lewis knows how to ask the Admin for things. Not that I can¡¯t ask the Admin for stuff, especially since I¡¯m a Player now. But Lewis is kinda¡­ He¡¯s in charge. He¡¯s further up the ¡°important person¡± ladder than I am. When he asks for things, it makes the request official somehow. As opposed to me just going ¡°hey can I have a thing?¡±, which isn¡¯t official sounding at all. I realize I¡¯m not exhausted right now. I¡¯m tired from cooking in a hot kitchen all day, but my brain still works. All cycle practically, I¡¯ve been going to sleep not tired so much as exhausted. I could have kept moving, but I just wanted my brain to be off. It¡¯s nice to be able to think. I don¡¯t want to fight like I¡¯ve been doing again. Even in the next dungeon, I don¡¯t want to fight. I¡¯m not really a pacifist, I don¡¯t mind killing things (like slimes), but I don¡¯t want to make it a goal or focus like it is with Ox and Tig and Larissa. I miss¡­ This is the first cycle where I haven¡¯t been with Via. I thought it wouldn¡¯t be a big deal, but I miss her. Mika was having lots of fun attacking and leveling up. She likes fighting. It¡¯s good exercise. She might decide to become a permanent member of Ox¡¯s group, and I¡¯d be sad to see her go but happy for her. But I think from now on I¡¯m gonna always stick with Via, no matter what. I hope she¡¯s been doing ok. I guess I¡¯ll find out tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (11) Y read over the recipe again. He looked at the pot of cheese. And back at the recipe. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he admitted, handing the book to Avi. ¡°She¡¯s short on instructions; maybe there¡¯s some magical heat-based trick to getting the cheese to melt properly. You watched her enough times, don¡¯t you know how she did it?¡± Avi scanned the page. ¡°She just put water and cheese into the pot and stirred, I think.¡± Y shrugged. ¡°Well, thankfully we have enough cheese to play with. Can¡¯t you give the raptors non-melted cheese, with blackberries on the side?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if they¡¯d eat it,¡± Avi said. ¡°They¡¯re very picky.¡± The kitchen door opened, and Nikki walked in. She saw Avi and stopped dead, staring. Avi stared back, claws digging into the cookbook. Y paused, feeling tension grow. Seconds ticked by in silence. ¡°Ah, Nik!¡± he finally called, picking up the pot. ¡°Why is the cheese curdling?¡± Nikki tore her eyes away from Avi, stepping towards Y. ¡°Did¡­ the water boil? After you put cheese in?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Y said. ¡°Brought the water to a boil, dumped in cheese, stirred until the cheese became this.¡± She shook her head. ¡°Cheese doesn¡¯t like to be boiled,¡± she said. ¡°A simmer is about the highest it can go without¡­ separating.¡± ¡°Mystery solved,¡± Y said, looking at Avi. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Avi was frozen in place, half-hiding his face with the book. Nikki kept glancing at him, ears pinned back against her skull. Y checked an imaginary watch. ¡°My, that late already? I must be elsewhere immediately! Nikki, Avi¡­¡± He teleported to Kimi¡¯s shop without waiting for a reply. ***** Dear Diary, I¡¯m home at last! Being home feels so good. There¡¯s something about sleeping in your own bed that¡¯s just the best. I don¡¯t know when Mika will get here with the others, but I hope it won¡¯t be for a few days. I¡¯ve kinda decided to join them again. It was rude to leave without saying good-bye. And watching the yetis get beat up does sound kinda fun. Also the bugs on Floor 98 are fun to fight. I won¡¯t let anyone hurt the wolves, and I¡¯ll just bring ranch balls for the slimes. Oh, I mentioned to Larissa a while back that sharks like carrots, and she asked if I ever poisoned the carrots. I was horrified at first, but it makes sense. I could poison food. And the sharks have resisted every attempt made to become my friends, so I guess there wouldn¡¯t be anything too bad about poisoning them. I mean, I¡¯d still feel bad. They¡¯re only doing what they think they have to do, and in return Players kill them in all sorts of horrible ways. Not fair. And then someone drops in food, which they¡¯re supposed to like, but it poisons them? Super not fair. Also there¡¯s a¡­ professional pride. It¡¯s not like doctors have, with their hippocratic oath or anything, but I make food. I make good food. Making food with the goal of hurting whatever eats it just feels evil. And I¡¯m not evil. Or, at least I try to not be. Sure, I¡¯m not perfect, but I don¡¯t do mean things on purpose. Usually. Unless someone deserves it. Which the sharks don¡¯t. So yeah, not gonna poison any carrots. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (12) Dear Diary, It¡¯s a good thing the cycle reset just goes ¡°poof¡± and we¡¯re on Floor 1, cuz right now asking me politely to go wouldn¡¯t work. Well, ok, it isn¡¯t really ¡°poof¡±. It¡¯s more a ¡°shimmer shimmer woosh¡± type thing. The Admin¡¯s magic color is gold, so the magic that takes us back to Floor 1 is all gold and sparkly. Anyways, yeah, I like being home. Home is good. At some point this cycle, Via learned gender-swap potions exist, and took one. So she¡¯s back to being Avi. The potion made him taller by like six inches. I guess it thinks guys shouldn¡¯t be 5¡¯2 or something. Well, 5¡¯2 without the ears. Cat ears automatically add like four inches to everyone¡¯s height, so we don¡¯t count them. But Avi is taller than Y, which just feels odd. To me. Y doesn¡¯t mind. I¡­ finally got to have that Important Conversation with Avi. About stuff. Which is good. Good communication is very adult-like and mature. Took a couple days to get around to it, but the conversation did happen. And, basically, yeah we¡¯re a Thing now. We haven¡¯t told anyone, but I think everyone knows. It¡¯s not like we¡¯ve been subtle these past two days. For some reason, I don¡¯t want to write about it. I mean, I know this is my diary, and it¡¯s private, but I don¡¯t want to write about Avi. It¡¯s¡­ private in a different way. What we say and do stays between me and him, and shouldn¡¯t be written down for some potential future reader to see. Even if there never is any future reader. If I get amnesia and this diary is my only way to remember stuff, then sorry future me. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Soooo yeah, that happened, and all is well. In other news, things are not well between Lilly and Staab. They haven¡¯t broken up (yet), but they¡¯ve been arguing a lot and Staab is staying at the inn now. I think Lilly got jealous of Kimi and Y¡¯s relationship, and tried to get Staab to copy them, but Staab was happy with how they were and wasn¡¯t ready to change anything. Like, they were fine not being engaged until Y asked Kimi to marry him, then suddenly Lilly wanted to be engaged, too. Then everyone forgot about it until last cycle, when Kimi was like ¡°oh yeah¡±, and they were married like a week later. And suddenly Lilly wanted a wedding, too. Which in a way I get. But it¡¯s dumb. I mean, Kimi and Y are both two steps away from full supervillain status. They get each other on a level no one else ever could, mostly because no one else is insane enough to think ¡°how hard would it be to remove all the oxygen from a floor¡± and then try. And succeed. Meanwhile, Staab and Lilly are both¡­ normal. Not that normal really exists, but if it did, they¡¯d both fit right in. Two normal people trying to copy the two most insane people in the dungeon just won¡¯t ever end well. I think Lilly will figure that out soon. Hopefully. Or else Staab will give in, which would be less good. It¡¯s all drama, and I don¡¯t like drama. But I don¡¯t have to deal with it! Instead, I get to be with Avi. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (13) Dear Diary, I know I said I didn¡¯t want to leave home, but I also said I¡¯d go with Mika and the others when they got here. They got here today. They¡¯ll be leaving tomorrow, and I¡¯ll be going with them. I mean, the other Players will be here soon, so I wouldn¡¯t have a whole lot of free time anyways. So I¡¯ll leave my diner in Y¡¯s care like we¡¯d originally planned, and head down to Floor 100. Samantha is coming, too. She said she wants to see how hard Floor 98 is to beat for her. I think there¡¯s some kind of closure she¡¯ll get by going down there without the twins. And¡­ I like the idea of her being with us. She has a protective sister/mama bear type personality. I¡¯m not¡­ worried about Ox or anything, but I¡¯ll still feel better with someone around who will absolutely destroy him if he tries something. Oh yeah! This will be the second time for me pushing the button! I was supposed to push it last cycle, but we kinda forgot to. There were more important things to do than beat the dungeon or whatever. The Sams, Aya, Kimi, and Y have pushed the button twice already. That leaves Mika, Avi, me, Lily, and Staab having only pushed it once. I don¡¯t know if Samantha will push it again. It¡¯s not like it¡¯ll hurt anything if she does, but there¡¯s no real point. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Actually¡­ I wonder what would happen to us if only five people push the button. I know the cycle will keep going until six people have pushed it, but I don¡¯t know what happens to the person who pushed it. I wonder if there¡¯s a Waiting Floor or something. Or if they get sent to Floor 1 and are just there by themselves. Maybe I¡¯ll ask Samantha to specifically not push the button, just to find out. But, no, that¡¯d leave Avi here without me for a couple days. I don¡¯t want that. So maybe I¡¯ll ask Samantha to push the button so the cycle will reset? Or! I know! I¡¯ll let Samantha do whatever she wants! Yeah, that sounds like a better plan. Well, Ox, Tig and Larissa might know what happens. They¡¯ve pushed the button before and had to wait. I can just ask them. In other news, I¡¯ve finally been starting to experiment with the thing that makes liquids into mist. I don¡¯t know exactly at what point drops of liquid become gas, but I think it doesn¡¯t reach that. So that makes it mist, right? Y and Kimi would know, I¡¯ll leave it up to them. Anyways, things with milk or cream don¡¯t really work with it. Well, they do, but it makes the dairy sour. Which is bad and gross. So if I use coffee it has to be black (or sweetened), and milkshakes are totally out. But the herbal teas I have all turn out pretty good. The only thing is, it seems to make the flavor¡­ weaken? So a nice light mint tea ends up with barely any smell. But stuff like vanilla syrup works super well. Now that I know that, I can start writing actual recipes! Just as soon as I have spare time again. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 45 (14) ¡°Ok, checklist time,¡± Larissa said, pulling a notebook out of her inventory. Around her, the party paused. They were within sight of the Floor 97 entrance. ¡°Does everyone have their fire resist rings at lvl 8 or above?¡± she asked. They all checked, and said yes. ¡°Everyone has armor to resist slashing damage?¡± A series of nods. She scanned the page and put the notebook back. ¡°All weapons are good? No damage?¡± After glancing at their weapons, the party all said yes. ¡°Great,¡± Larissa said. ¡°Ok, here¡¯s the plan. Step 1: get Nikki to the Safe Zone. Step 2: Nikki, you focus on healing while the rest of us take out as many kobolds as we can. Step 3: After everyone else dies, Nikki will call us back to her. Step 4: I¡¯ll cast invisibility, Samantha will cast silence, and we¡¯ll run as a group for the dragon with Ox in the lead to clear the way. Step 5: As soon as we¡¯re within range, Nikki will teleport us to the exit. We all clear?¡± Everyone nodded again. ¡°Awesome. Let¡¯s go!¡± ***** If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Dear Diary, We made it to the entrance of Floor 99. I think we could have kept going, but apparently it¡¯s risky to fight when you¡¯re tired if you¡¯re on a floor with no safe zone. And we are all tired. Today reminded me of way back when we were first exploring, and figuring out how to get through the dungeon. Actually, no, it kinda felt like I was being a tour guide. ¡°These are dire wolves, who will not attack if one has meatballs. If you look up, you can see giant spiders lurking in the trees. Their aggro area begins at ten feet above the ground, so no one jump.¡± ¡°While the majority of sharks on this floor are tiger sharks, there are also a few great whites, a pair of hammerheads, and one can¡¯t forget the kraken at the bottom. Her tentacles are thirty feet long, and yes they do taste like squid.¡± ¡°On this floor there are many kinds of slimes. Here I have a puff pastry filled with ranch dressing. Please stand behind the line for safety reasons, and observe what happens when the pastry is thrown at a slime.¡± Larissa has a notebook with notes on all the floors. She already knew that the dire wolves like meatballs, but she didn¡¯t have it written down that slimes hate ranch dressing. I think if I had a notebook like that, it¡¯d mostly be full of people¡¯s names and what their favorite food is. Actually, I should have a notebook like that. It would make it a lot easier to remember which group of kobolds asked for mac and cheese, and what floor they were on exactly. Or not. I¡¯m not a very organized person. At least, not compared to some people. I think Aya would be really good at keeping a notebook full of stuff like that. Or Kimi. The only problem with that is, I¡¯m not always with them. So it wouldn¡¯t help. Oh! Unless we all had a shared inventory!! Then we could put that book in there, and the phone book thing Lily made! That way we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about making copies for everyone. I can¡¯t believe I forgot to suggest a shared inventory. Well¡­ Ok, not really. I have been kinda distracted. I¡¯ll write it in big letters so I don¡¯t forget when the cycle resets. MAKE SHARED INVENTORY. That should do it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! I remembered to make a shared Family Inventory with everyone in it. As soon as we get to a floor I can cook on, I¡¯ll make a bunch of meatballs and ranch balls and put them in there for everyone to use. Lily¡¯s phone book is in there, too, so we can message basically anyone in the dungeon! I¡¯ve already messaged Nat and Gin, and they promise to give me all the gossip. Oh, the kobolds are going to have another cooking competition this cycle! It¡¯ll be the day after we get back to our floor, so I can enter! They haven¡¯t decided what the theme is going to be yet. Avi and Mika are in a group chat thing with their band. Apparently they¡¯re trying to make a whole symphony. Everyone has a part to write, and they¡¯ll tie it together somehow. Avi spent like an hour explaining it to me, and I didn¡¯t understand half the words, but he¡¯s super excited about it. It was cute. The only part I really get is that there aren¡¯t going to be any words or dancing or anything to go with it. It¡¯ll just be pure music. Oh, this cycle we¡¯re all elves. There are three subraces for elves: high, wood, and dark. They all come with their own special spells, and the race itself gives a buff to magic. I actually really like it. My favorite race is neko, because honestly nothing beats being a catgirl, but elf might be a close second. I went with wood elf, so I got a couple plant and animal spells. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Y, Kimi, Samuel and Samurai are dark elves. Aya, Lily and Mika are high elves. Avi, Staab and Samantha are wood elves. We decided subrace didn¡¯t matter in the ¡°try every race¡± thing, since there isn¡¯t a huge difference between them. Lily wanted to make a party with all the girls, but Kimi and I were against it. Then she wanted to separate us based on subrace. Samantha agreed to that way too fast, and Lily realized it¡¯d be a bad idea. At that point Ox and Larissa came over, and asked if Mika and I wanted to join them. Staab volunteered to go with them instead. So the parties ended up being me and Avi with Kimi and Y, Aya and Mika with the Sams, Staab with Ox¡¯s party, and Lily all by herself. Lily¡­ is not going to have a fun cycle. Hopefully it makes her rethink some things, and she figures out life isn¡¯t a competition. Meanwhile, I get to be in a party that doesn¡¯t focus on killing things! We can teleport over boring floors! I can help kidnap velociraptors! Cooking will happen! Avi will be with me! Oh yeah! Avi changed his height to be like an inch taller than me. So he¡¯s not as tall as the potion made him, but not as short as he is as Via. I don¡¯t know why that¡¯s important to me. It really shouldn¡¯t be. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (2) Dear Diary, Yep, being in a party that doesn¡¯t want to kill anything is the best. It¡¯s where I need to be. Yesterday morning we got to Floor 14, the first catgirl floor. I spent the day cooking, and everyone helped. I mean, everyone in the party. Melody, the diner owner, didn¡¯t help. She just sat back and watched as we kinda destroyed her kitchen. We cleaned up when we were done; I think she was worried we wouldn¡¯t. Anyways, we now have a couple hundred meatballs and fish balls in the family inventory, and we¡¯ve got ranch balls for days. Since Y helped, they¡¯re the super effective instant slime killing ranch balls, not just the normal throw then wait slime killing ranch balls. It was a fun day. Then this morning, after breakfast, we ran down three floors and kidnapped the velociraptors. Oh! The giant spinosaurus thing on the dinosaur floor! He always runs away when we show up, since Avi always tries to hug him, and I guess he doesn¡¯t like being hugged. This time, when we were petting the velociraptors, the spinosaurus came over! He didn¡¯t want to be touched, but when we put a pile of meatballs down then stepped back, he ate them! Avi, obsessed with dinosaurs, is already planning on turning the spinosaurus into our pet. Kimi and I pointed out that the spinosaurus is too big to fit through the exit. Avi and Y pointed out that magic is a thing, and while grow/shrink potions don¡¯t exist yet, they might eventually. Then the conversation devolved into a full-on argument. It¡­ was fun. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I never really got Kimi and Y¡¯s whole ¡°argue for fun¡± thing before. Well, I sort of did, but as something other people enjoyed. But¡­ this was fun. I mean, it was stupid. Even if we could fit the giant dinosaur that¡¯s afraid of us through the exit, I¡¯m pretty sure the Admin would have something to say about it. Two little raptors is one thing, but the boss of the boss floor probably needs to stay. So even thinking about it is pointless. But as we were measuring the exit and the spinosaurus¡¯ height, debating how much a shrink potion would have to shrink, calculating cycles of food-giving before it lets us put a collar on it, and insisting the velociraptors would help (or hinder) our attempts¡­ The pointlessness kinda became the point. And I had a lot of fun. More fun than I¡¯ve had in a while. I don¡¯t want to start any other arguments. And I¡¯m not gonna be tempted to join Kimi and Y¡¯s next argument. A part of me will always be afraid a fun argument will turn real, and I hate real arguments. But this was fun. Anyways, the argument ended by us deciding a shrink potion would have to shrink the spinosaurus by ?, that we¡¯d have to make an adjustable collar in case the potion doesn¡¯t shrink clothes, and with Avi and I cuddling the velociraptors, asking if they¡¯d be the spinosaurus¡¯ friends. Kimi and Y think they wouldn¡¯t be. But Avi and I are the dinosaur experts here, and we think they¡¯d be friends. Mostly because we want them to be. With us around, friendship is mandatory. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (3) Dear Diary, Yeahhh, Lily is having a bad time. Not bad enough to want to join us, but being a solo player is¡­ not for her. She thanked us for the ranch balls, though. Thing is, she has high-level psychic spells. Psychic spells don¡¯t work on things without brains. Like carnivorous plants and slimes. She¡¯s pretty good with her sword, but not as good as Mika. I don¡¯t think she¡¯s died, but everyone bets she will have by the time we get home. We haven¡¯t seen Staab and Ox¡¯s group, so we don¡¯t know how he¡¯s doing. I hope he¡¯s ok. He¡¯s a good fighter, but he never did learn any magic. He always said it felt wrong to him. Oh! The cooking competition! Nat says they¡¯ve decided the theme shall be pancakes. Everyone has to make six pancakes, and then we can put anything on top or between them. For the first time, presentation will play a part. So not only does it have to taste good, it has to look pretty, too. I know a couple people are going to do the traditional whipped cream and strawberries thing, cuz it¡¯s practically impossible to make that look bad. And some people will go the savory route with sausage or bacon. I don¡¯t know why, but my first instinct is to make the batter have bacon bits in it, and make a topping out of mango. I¡¯ve never tried mango and bacon together, but my instincts insist that¡¯s the winning combination. Sure, I could spend a day or two trying to come up with a different combination of things, but why fight it? I¡¯ll spend that time figuring out exactly how much bacon to put in the pancake batter. I think I¡¯ll use the boxed mix for pancakes. I could make it myself, but homemade pancakes always taste different from boxed stuff, and it¡¯s not always better. There aren¡¯t a lot of things that are better from boxed mixes, but pancakes are one of them. Usually. There are exceptions, and I know Gin is going to make her own mix. Probably to make it with soda and candy or something. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Anyways, I haven¡¯t been writing as much lately. I¡­ yeah. Sorry, non-sentient notebook, for not giving you as much attention as usual. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll go back to writing every night for a while. I¡¯ll keep you updated as much as possible. Goodnight, Dungeon!
***** The kobolds on Floor 2 looked at each other, worried. The group of Players weren¡¯t leaving. The Players had used a freeze spell on them, shoved them together, and set up camp. The kobolds kept being frozen and re-frozen, covered in ice sheet after ice sheet, with no time to even scratch their noses. Unable to move, they couldn¡¯t open any window. The Players looked like they were having a great time! Hanging out, relaxing, barbecuing, playing cards¡­ Good for them. One kobold, Cas, focused all her energy into wiggling her hand. Finally, after hours, she was able to make a fist. Then she wiggled her arm until she was able to touch the inventory icon. A blue window popped up, showing everything she had access to. At the bottom right of the window was a message icon. She slowly moved her arm down, hoping the Players wouldn¡¯t notice and re-freeze her. They were playing cards at the moment, so it was possible. She hit the icon. A new window opened. By default the message went to the Admin. The send button was within her range of movement. Cas sent the message empty. Then she sent another one. And another. And another. She was on message eight when a Player noticed her movement and re-froze everyone. Then they waited. Cas wasn¡¯t sure if the Admin had noticed the messages, or if he¡¯d investigate them. She¡¯d done what she could, and had to wait. About half an hour later, what seemed like an eternity in their frozen state, the kobolds felt gold magic surround them. They were transported onto a new floor, landing between three walls made of bushes.
Welcome to Floor 93.5! You will stay here until the end of the cycle. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The kobolds barely noticed the message. They huddled together for warmth, twitching and shivering. Eventually Cas looked up. A table had appeared, with hot soup and steaming mugs of cider on it. She smiled, silently thanking the Admin. Cycle 46 (4) Dear Diary, Being an elf is fun. Elves have buffs to magic, so I can teleport all the way across most floors. We still walk through some, because we have friends. And the velociraptors still aren¡¯t completely used to it. They¡¯ll be doing their usual raptor things, sniffing around, kicking foliage to see if it attacks, and suddenly poof they¡¯re in a different spot! They don¡¯t freak out or anything, but I can¡¯t blame them for being just a little disoriented sometimes. Next cycle we¡¯re going to be fairies, and Samuel wants to try a speedrun race. Samantha wants to try going solo, so that¡¯ll leave us with six girls and four guys. Samuel said we should do a guys vs girls run. Y pointed out that this would put the two strongest fighters and the strongest teleporter on the girls team, meaning he¡¯d be on the losing team. I think Aya is going to be a guy next cycle, so at least that team will have the strongest fighter. Y still isn¡¯t happy, and says we shouldn¡¯t allow teleporting. I think we should. And not just because I¡¯m the strongest teleporter. If the point of a speedrun is to go fast, well, you can¡¯t get faster than teleportation. Oh! Painbringer the Gold, also known as Jenny, says she¡¯s teaching the wyverns a choreograph dance. She took a song, and is trying to get them to go from one place to another in time to it. It¡¯s going ok, but she only has four steps trained so far. She says she tried before, but couldn¡¯t get the wyverns to go through more than three steps. But she didn¡¯t have treats then. Treats make a huge difference when you¡¯re trying to train pets. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Jenny didn¡¯t let us see the steps, saying she wanted it to be a surprise next cycle or whenever she gets done training them. Avi wants to train the dracoraptors to dance. Given how long it took him to get them used to a saddle, I think training them to dance will take literally forever. And they still aren¡¯t used to a rider. Half the time they just fold to the ground and growl menacingly when Avi gets on. I¡¯ve never tried riding the dracoraptors. It¡¯s not that I¡¯m scared of them, but¡­ Actually, yeah, I am kinda scared of them. They¡¯re big, they¡¯re unpredictable, and they have super sharp teeth and claws. Avi¡¯s been bitten by them so many times he has scars. Usually dying or getting hurt doesn¡¯t leave any mark when we respawn, but there is a limit. I¡¯ve got¡­ they¡¯re kinda tear marks? Up by my shoulders. Between mimics, bats, pterodactyls and that giant worm thing, my arms have come off way more times than I¡¯d like to remember. But with a t-shirt no one can see them. And yes, having your arm torn off is painful. Thankfully my pain resistance is level 47, so things are only about half as painful as they should be! I¡¯ve got other scars, too, but they aren¡¯t as prominent as the shoulder ones. Except maybe the ones on my fingers, where I cut myself cooking. But hey, not having any scars at all would be weird. Everyone has scars. Getting scars is just a part of being a person. Overall I think I like my scars. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (Admin) The Admin shrugged, summoning a screen. ¡°No problem,¡± he told Emmy. ¡°I can make the potion for any race, too. You want to try being an elf? Or maybe hobgoblin?¡± She tapped her foot. ¡°Neko is fine, but if you think I¡¯d look better as something else I¡¯ll take it.¡± ¡°Neko it is,¡± he said, pulling two vials into existence. ¡°Mostly because changing it would require the effort of pushing¡­ three buttons.¡± She laughed, picking a vial up. ¡°Predictable.¡± He picked up the other vial. ¡°Don¡¯t tell, but I¡¯ve wanted to try one of these. Cheers.¡± ¡°Cheers.¡± They drank. He happened to know that the potion tasted like catnip. Since he¡¯d never tried eating catnip before, to him it tasted vaguely minty. Not bad. Meanwhile, his ears changed shape, he grew a tail, and fine fur covered his skin. The movement range on his ears was amazing. Having a tail wasn¡¯t particularly exciting, but retractable claws would take some getting used to. Emmy, having changed from kobold to neko, flattened the fur on her arms and smiled at him. ¡°How do you feel?¡± ¡°Inhuman,¡± he said. ¡°But in a good way.¡± ¡°It looks good on you,¡± she said, moving closer to him. ¡°You should wear a tail full-time.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. He looked at the tail in question. ¡°Nah, don¡¯t want the other Admins to call me a furry.¡± She laughed softly, moving even closer. ¡°Right, because you care so much about their opinions.¡± Admin 6 grinned. ¡°I try to care. A little. Sometimes.¡± ¡°Sure, we all believe that.¡± She put a hand on his arm, leaning in. He realized she was going to kiss him and panicked. He scrambled away, tripped over a chair, and fell backwards. His skull hit the floor with a crack, and his vision blacked out for a moment. Emmy took his arm, pulling him up into the chair. ¡°Are you ok? Calvin, I¡¯m¡­ sorry.¡± The Admin put his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. He tried to say something, but no words came out. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she repeated, her voice soft. ¡°I thought- I guess I¡­ Sorry.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry. I shouldn¡¯t have¡­¡± He looked at her. ¡°Me being here, with you, breaks four rules and eighteen guidelines. Being in a¡­ relationship¡­ with you is so completely unthinkable they¡¯d have to make new rules to ban it. I¡¯m sorry, I got too close. I didn¡¯t mean to. If anyone ever, ever found out how I feel¡­ I honestly don¡¯t know what they¡¯d do to me. Or to you.¡± He put his head back in his hands. ¡°I should go.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± Emmy took one of his hands, moving it so she could look him in the eye. ¡°We¡¯ll be careful. Or, you¡¯ll be careful. I¡¯ll just keep pretending I¡¯ve never met you.¡± The Admin smiled faintly, moving his free hand to brush her cheek. ¡°You¡¯re sure? Positive?¡± ¡°I did mean to get close to you,¡± she told him. ¡°It took me long enough to break through your walls, I¡¯m not backing down now. Besides, forcing someone to write a whole new chapter in the law books would be enough of a legacy for me.¡± After a few seconds he shrugged. ¡°They¡¯re going to murder me anyway, I might as well spend the intervening time with you.¡± She beamed, moving into his lap. ¡°That¡¯s the spirit.¡± Cycle 46 (5) Dear Diary, We¡¯re home! I¡¯m always happy to be home. And! Lex and Tim made it here with us!! So we have raptor pets here now! The dracoraptors weren¡¯t all that happy to meet Lex and Tim, and would have eaten them if I hadn¡¯t teleported them away. Avi and I decided the velociraptors are going to stay on Floor 93, even if we leave. I realized that I start a lot of sentences with conjunctions. In school I¡¯m pretty sure I was taught to never start a sentence with and or but. But I do it a lot. Like just then! I don¡¯t know if I should change my habits, or just declare English grammar rules to be stupid. I think I¡¯ll just declare the rules to be stupid. It¡¯s easier than changing. Besides, what would I change it to? I¡¯d rather start a sentence with ¡°and¡± than have my sentence be too long. Anyways, this cycle Avi, Lily and Staab have to push the reset button. Lily and Staab haven¡¯t gotten here yet, so we¡¯re not sure what¡¯ll happen with that. We still don¡¯t know what happens to Players who push the button way ahead of the cycle actually restarting, and Mika really wants to know. Maybe something different would happen to us, since we¡¯re not exactly real Players. I mean, we kinda are, but there¡¯s a difference. I don¡¯t want Avi to push the button. Maybe Mika will, and we¡¯ll find out what happens then. But it¡¯s up to her. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Oh! When we got here, we got a message saying there¡¯s a secret Floor attached to our Floor somehow! We haven¡¯t found it yet, but the Admin says it¡¯s a maze that leads to the stairwell going down to Floor 100! So that¡¯s pretty cool. I kinda really hope we find it before any of the Players find it. Since it¡¯s our Floor. We should know it best. Plus we have time. Actually¡­ If the exit to the hidden Floor is in the stairwell to Floor 100, that¡¯s a much smaller area to search. It¡¯d probably be easier to find it there, then go through the maze backwards. Seems easier than combing through every square inch of wall in all our buildings. Especially since we don¡¯t even know if it is in one of our buildings. In other news, mango and bacon go super well together! The cooking competition is tomorrow, and I am super ready. We¡¯ve got eighteen contestants, and three judges. Lewis, as always, the flying ants from Floor 98, and Cynoe the yeti. Oh yeah! Cynoe! He used to have a crush on Mika, and that did not end well for him. He has a key now, and I think he¡¯s dating one of the air elementals. Maybe. He spends a lot of time with them, at least. Altho maybe he just hangs out with them all the time cuz they¡¯re cool and the yetis are weird. Anyways, Cynoe is like twice as big as the kobolds, so it won¡¯t be an issue for him to eat eighteen pancakes. Tomorrow¡¯s gonna be fun! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (6) Dear Diary, Mika decided she¡¯s going to push the button when the first Players arrive, and Emmy can take over her shop again. In case it¡¯s necessary. I didn¡¯t really get to know Emmy last cycle. I was¡­ otherwise occupied. Of course, I won¡¯t really have time to get to know her this cycle, either, if she only comes up after Players get here. Oh well. The cooking competition went ok. Mango and bacon was not a winning combo. I mean, I ranked fourth, so it¡¯s not like they were terrible or anything, but yeah. Since presentation was a factor this time, the winning pancakes were made by a kobold named Lor who made a pancake shaped like Lewis¡¯ head, with various jams to color it. As much as I hate losing based on something looking really cool, I have to admit that it looked really cool. Gin won second place. She did the basic ¡°strawberries and whipped cream¡± look, but she put a candy glaze on the strawberries to make them have a slight crunch, and made red candy sprinkles to go over the whipped cream. That plus whatever she did to the batter got her silver. At this point I¡¯m kinda tempted to give Gin a head of broccoli and some string beans and say ¡°here, make these unhealthy¡±. I bet she could do it. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Nat scored one below me, and Mar got third place. So even though the cooking crew didn¡¯t win all the prizes in this competition, we still all got in the top five. So we all feel validated that we do most of the cooking around here. Oh yeah! Kimi and Y found the secret Floor! They went down to the stairwell to Floor 100 and felt around until they found the exit. Then they went through the maze backwards, and came out through the bottom of the treasure chest! There¡¯s a tiny notch in the bottom of the treasure chest now, and if you stick your finger in, you can pull the whole bottom out! It leads to a short stairway, which opens up into the maze. I haven¡¯t been down there yet, but Kimi says it has a bunch of plants that attack, and a couple quicksand patches. Tomorrow we¡¯re all going to go down and explore the maze. I wonder if we should fill the treasure chest with leaves again. Or maybe put actual treasure in there. That way no one will ever find the secret Floor. On the one hand, having a secret and never sharing it is fun. On the other hand, the Admin probably wants everyone to find it. If I spent time and effort to build something, I¡¯d be kinda annoyed if a group of people hid it away and never let anyone know it existed. Of course, we can¡¯t just tell everyone where the entrance is, unless they offered an absurd amount of money or something, but we shouldn¡¯t make it harder to find than it already is. Actually, Aya is supposed to know everything. Players might ask her where the entrance is. I bet she already has some kind of instruction on what to tell people about the maze. I¡¯ll go ask her what it is! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (7) Mika took a deep breath and pushed the button. There was a gold flash as magic covered her. She closed her eyes, feeling herself being teleported. When she opened them, she was in a crowded room. No, not a room, a two-story fantasy-style tavern with backlit fish tanks in place of doors and windows. As Mika looked around everyone jumped up, smiling and shouting. They surrounded her, pressing pints of beer into her hands as they asked what cycle she was on and how many times she¡¯d pushed the button. Mika¡­ grinned. She flopped into a provided chair, downing half a pint in one go. Wiping her mouth, she pointed at people and gave one-word answers to their shouted questions. She was a Player, and everyone here knew it. They knew what that meant. It didn¡¯t take her long to figure out these people had been Players too, but for whatever reason were now out of the game. As she was still in the game, that made her a celebrity. Eventually the questions died down, and people wandered back to their games and hobbies. Mika went to the bar and chatted with the bartender/cook, who used to be a Player himself. He explained why the tavern existed, why these people were out of the game, and where the fish came from. Mika took a room key, knowing she was going to be here for a few days. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. She planned on having fun. ***** Dear Diary, The Players got here this morning! Tim ate one! That was¡­ Ok, mostly it was funny. Bad, but funny. Avi locked the velociraptors in his room so it doesn¡¯t happen again. Mika went down and pushed the button. Y went down later to check if she was still on Floor 100, and she isn¡¯t. Then I tried messaging her, but got an error message in reply. So either I have her number wrong, or¡­ I don¡¯t know. Maybe she isn¡¯t in the dungeon? I probably just got her number wrong. Anyways, Emmy is in charge of the blacksmith shop again. Her magic color is brown, meaning she has brown hair. It¡¯s kinda weird to me that she can have brown hair. I mean, the most ¡°natural¡± color any catgirl had here was silver, and even then it isn¡¯t common for a twenty-two year old to have grey hair. Seeing a catgirl with a ¡°normal¡± hair color is weird. But other than that I like Emmy. She¡¯s the type of person who makes plans and has solid goals. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if her diary is a bullet journal. If she has a diary. She seems like a list person more than a write down whatever pops into your head person, like me. ¡­I guess you could argue that Aya¡¯s hair is blonde, but it really isn¡¯t. It¡¯s yellow. Super saturated yellow. Oh, Lily got here yesterday! It took her a lot longer than I thought it would. She hasn¡¯t been too talkative, I think being solo wore her out. I should take her something made out of coffee and ice cream, to make her feel better. Yeah, I need to make her something with lots of sugar, cream and caffeine. It¡¯s not a permanent fix, but it¡¯ll help for a little while. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 46 (8) Dear Diary, Aya has been telling the Players about the secret floor, but they haven¡¯t found it yet. Oh yeah! I forgot to write about it! Floor 93.5 is a hedge maze. The walls don¡¯t go all the way to the ceiling, so it¡¯s possible to just climb over them. But Samurai noticed that the layout is exactly the same as Floor 96¡¯s maze! It¡¯s just rotated ninety degrees. Which, copy/pasting a maze layout is exactly the level of lazy we¡¯ve all come to expect from the Admin. Other than carnivorous plants, there¡¯s a group of kobolds in the maze. They said they¡¯re really Floor 2 kobolds, and I guess are just here on vacation? They¡¯re stupidly low-level for being this far down in the dungeon. A Player here could probably one-shot KO them by sneezing in their direction. Which, that might be the point. Anyways, if they¡¯re back next cycle they¡¯ve been invited to a party on Floor 97. Because meeting new kobolds is a great reason for the kobolds to have a party. If the Floor 97 kobolds had known about the secret floor before the Players showed up, they already would have held a party for them. Oh, we¡¯ve decided to do the guys vs girls speedrun next cycle. Aya is going to swap genders, so it¡¯s not totally unfair to the guys. I¡¯ll miss Avi, but I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll be apart for more than a week. If we¡¯re putting all our focus into getting through floors as fast as possible we might be able to go through more than ten a day. And we won¡¯t be stopping at catgirl floors, so that¡¯ll make things go faster. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. We didn¡¯t have any marble races this cycle. Which is very sad. I guess¡­ Well, we started racing marbles because we didn¡¯t have anything else to do. We couldn¡¯t leave our floor, we didn¡¯t have any other friends, and we were bored. All those things have changed. They¡¯ve super changed. We don¡¯t need to race marbles any more. I think we still will, sometimes, but not every cycle. And maybe only one race a cycle. Circumstances change, and the circumstances that made us live for marble racing are a thing of the past. We all still love marble racing, and having a race now and again will be good, but we¡¯ve moved on. It¡¯s sad, but good. Having friends, being able to travel, and not spending weeks at a time being bored are all very good things. I wouldn¡¯t trade back for anything. Speaking of friends, Staab got here with his party this evening. When they leave tomorrow morning, Lily and Avi are going to go with them. They¡¯ll go through the secret floor, so the cycle should end before noon tomorrow. So my next entry will be after the start of the speedrun! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (1)
A note to all Players: Campsites have been set up in the stairways. Spending more than 6 hours on any floor that is not a catgirl floor is now prohibited. If you do, you will die and respawn on Floor 1, which you will not be allowed to leave until cycle reset. If you feel you have been sent back unfairly, you may message the Admin and explain.
Dear Diary, I¡¯m a fairy! Fairies have wings! I¡¯m like a foot and a half tall, and have been flying around like nobody¡¯s business! Aaaaand, fairies have the same boost to magic that elves have, so I can teleport all the way across most floors! It still takes time to go down the stairways, though. And some floors, like slime mazes and castle floors, it¡¯s just not possible to teleport through. So it¡¯s not like we¡¯ll be able to get through the whole dungeon in one day. It should take like six days. We¡¯re between Floor 20 and Floor 21 right now. Which is pretty good progress, if I say so myself. Oh yeah! The Admin set up camps for Players between the floors! Nothing too fancy, and it¡¯s just the same thing over and over again, but it¡¯s still better than sleeping in some random corner of a random floor. The camps are just a fire pit with benches around it, and a little further back from the benches are a dozen tiny cabins. The cabins only have two bunk beds in them, no storage chests or anything. Oh, and a bathroom. Sleeping in a cabin costs 1 copper a night per person, which I¡¯m pretty sure is just the Admin¡¯s way of making a bed in there officially rented. That way people can¡¯t just wander in and out of all the cabins, checking to see if all the beds are taken. You can only rent one bed at a time, and you can¡¯t enter a cabin without renting a bed in it. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Anyways, the guys aren¡¯t here. I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯re ahead of them. I don¡¯t know by how much, tho. Avi and I made bow ties for the velociraptors, and whoever got there first would put the ties on. When we got to Floor 17, the velociraptors didn¡¯t have any ties on, so yeah. The girls are ahead. Since we¡¯re speedrunning, Avi and I decided to not kidnap the velociraptors this cycle. We don¡¯t want to stress them out too much. Instead, we¡¯ll be spending more time with the dracoraptors once we get back to our floor. Oh, Aya switched to be a guy this cycle. Given that the only way to rearrange the name ¡°Aya¡± is to make it ¡°Aay¡± or ¡°Yaa¡±, or possibly ¡°Yay¡±, none of which are particularly good names, he¡¯s going by ¡°Ty¡±. He says it felt right, and who am I to argue? I don¡¯t know if it was a specific choice or if it¡¯s cuz he¡¯s maxed out his strength stat, but Ty¡­ has amazing muscles. I can¡¯t wait to see him as a catguy, cuz if he looks that buff as a fairy¡­ I mean, Aya always had toned muscles, and she was the tallest out of the group, but it was never¡­ How to put this¡­ Ty is hot. And no one expected that. Especially not the guys, who immediately all developed some kind of inferiority complex, going by the looks on their faces. Especially when all us girls wanted Ty to take his shirt off. ¡­Just to see. Out of curiosity. As friends. And next cycle we¡¯re going to demand Aya switch out her plate mail for bikini armor. Just to see. ¡­I feel the need to write that Avi is still the cutest and I¡¯ll love him forever. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (2) Dear Diary, When we get down to our floor, we¡¯re going to steal a bunch of mattresses, duplicate them, and see what it¡¯s like to sleep on top of a hundred mattresses. Well, borrow, not steal. We¡¯ll make sure all the cabin beds have mattresses when we¡¯re done. I don¡¯t have peas, so we¡¯re going to stick a marble down at the bottom. Then we¡¯ll see if any of us are truly princesses. Or something. First we¡¯ll have to see if we can actually climb up a tower of a hundred mattresses without it falling over. We spent like an hour after dinner trying to figure out how to stack them in the first place. Kimi and Mika did maths to figure out exactly how a mattress would come out of an inventory, while Samurai and I tried pulling stuff out of the family inventory at exactly the same time. Tonight was fun. We stopped on Floor 28 for lunch today. That¡¯s the catgirl floor. We only had burgers and soda, something fast and easy. The guys still hadn¡¯t shown up by the time we were done. Right now we¡¯re between floors 35 and 36. Kimi messaged Y, and apparently they¡¯re only on Floor 31. So we¡¯re pretty far ahead of them. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Mika thinks we should be further ahead of the guys, but I think it¡¯s fine. Just because the NPCs are getting stronger doesn¡¯t mean teleporting past them will get harder. That¡¯s the whole point of teleportation. Besides, we¡¯re all strong enough to take any enemy down to like Floor 75. In other news, Lily has been quieter lately. She never really joked around a lot, and tried to be the most ¡°mature¡± out of us, but now she really isn¡¯t joking around. Not that she¡¯s mad or anything, she just doesn¡¯t want to talk. I feel sorry for her. But there isn¡¯t much I can do. She has to fix things on her own. I kinda wonder how Staab is doing. I feel like I haven¡¯t talked to him in forever. Well, I haven¡¯t talked to him in forever. At least like three cycles. Not because of anything specific, we just¡­ haven¡¯t talked. ¡­ Our¡­ I think our group has gotten too big. When it was just the six of us, or just the five of us, we all had to talk. We knew each other super well. Then Staab came along, then Y and Via, and now the Sams¡­ We don¡¯t all fit at a single diner table any more. Even if we wanted to stay together, we have to be in two parties. Before, we were all equally good friends. But now there are groups within the group. I kinda miss how it was, but I don¡¯t want to go back. Going back would mean losing Avi and Y, and I don¡¯t want that. Even the Sams, now that they aren¡¯t glued together, are pretty fun to hang out with. A part of me feels like the group getting bigger is a bad thing, but I know it¡¯s for the best. Besides, it¡¯s not like I¡¯m mad about having more friends. More friends is always a good thing. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (3) Dear Diary, Mika finally talked about what happened when she pushed the button! We kinda forgot to ask about it before now. She said she didn¡¯t want to bring it up because she got ¡°don¡¯t talk about it¡± feelings. We all know what those are like. But curiosity overrides them. So! Mika was taken from the dungeon and went to a tavern place with ex-players. She said that on occasion the Admin cuts down the number of players, so he can focus better on the good ones. When he does, the not-good players go to the tavern. Apparently the tavern is two stories, with bedrooms for everyone on the second floor. The main floor is a big open space with lots of tables, and a kitchen at the back. Where there should be doors and windows, instead there are fish tanks. The tanks are separated so there¡¯s only one fish per tank. I don¡¯t know how they know, but she said the fish in the tanks used to be people. It¡¯s basically jail. People who do bad things get turned into a fish. Given that players are told to repeatedly murder their way through the dungeon, I don¡¯t want to know what they did to make the Admin go ¡°yeah, no, that¡¯s bad¡±. But I¡¯m glad they got taken out of the dungeon, if they really were that evil. Anyways, there are cards and board games for the people to play with, along with musical instruments and plenty of art supplies. It sounds a little boring, but it could be worse. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I wonder why the Admin doesn¡¯t just put them to sleep, though. I mean, couldn¡¯t he just¡­ pause them? Or something? I don¡¯t know, maybe there¡¯s a timer going and everyone has to stay the same age relative to everyone else. ¡­Or something. Anyways, our speedrun is going very speedily. We¡¯re like ten floors ahead of the guys now. Tomorrow, instead of starting early and zooming down the floors, we¡¯re going to take it easy. We¡¯ll sleep in, have a big breakfast, paint our nails, and relax. Then when the guys get here we¡¯ll be like ¡°ohhhh yeahhhhh we¡¯re racing¡± and take off. We¡¯ll go as fast as we can, and by the time night falls we¡¯ll be ahead of them again. Just to rub it in their faces. I feel like I should feel a little bad about doing that. But I don¡¯t. Mostly I feel competitive. I wonder if the Floor 2 kobolds are back on the secret floor again. They were on Floor 2 when we passed by, but that¡¯s to be expected. I think they¡¯d be sent down when all the players reach the first checkpoint. So they should be there by now. If they are, the Floor 97 kobolds would have had a party for them by now. I bet it was an epic party. The kobolds always throw epic parties. I know they¡¯re going to have at least one party this cycle with us there, cuz there¡¯ll be a party after the symphony, but I¡¯m still a little jealous. Not jealous enough to think they shouldn¡¯t have had a party, though. I¡¯ll never be that jealous. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (4) Dear Diary, We¡¯re back home! Sorry I didn¡¯t write yesterday, I was too tired. We really pushed ourselves to go as far as we could, and stopped loooong after dark. But! We beat the guys! That¡¯s the important thing. They¡¯ll probably get here tomorrow morning. Then we¡¯ll all be back together again, and have a good while before the players get here. It¡¯ll be the longest we¡¯ve had since we became players. Mika and Avi have their symphony in a couple days, but we might do a couple more big fun things. Maybe, just maybe, the kobolds might be able to be convinced to have a party. It¡¯s a long shot, we all know how much they hate parties, especially big ones. But if we come up with a good plan, and have a five-page essay detailing the benefits of parties, maaaaybe they¡¯ll agree to it. Pfft, sorry, I can¡¯t keep going. They already have three parties planned for this cycle. Asking the kobolds ¡°hey, want to party?¡± is like asking a wolf ¡°hey, do you want this steak?¡± The answer is always yes. You might not even get to the end of the question before they answer. Oh! Speaking of kobolds! The Floor 2 kobolds are back in the secret floor! Kimi gave them keys, so this cycle they¡¯ll be able to wander around and get to know everyone! So far they¡¯ve been sticking together, which I can¡¯t blame them for. When you¡¯ve been stuck in a small group for a long time it¡¯s kinda a shock to suddenly be shoved into a group of two hundred people. Apparently the new kobolds play basketball as their main thing, so Floor 97 has a basketball court now. The Floor 97 kobolds are doing tryouts for a basketball team, and Mar has passed the first two rounds. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Usually I¡¯m about as interested in watching paint dry as watching sports, but tomorrow I¡¯ll absolutely be down there, cheering for Mar to win. ¡­Except marble racing. Marble racing is clearly the best sport ever. Goodnight, Dungeon!
*** Avi played imaginary drums, practicing the last piece in the symphony. Suddenly Y teleported over and sat down next to him, making him jump slightly. ¡°We have a problem,¡± Y said, his voice quiet. Avi¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°We do?¡± Y nodded, motioning across the campfire towards Ty. Ty was arm-wrestling Staab, and winning. He¡¯d switched hoodie and breastplate for the boho necklace ¡°armor¡±, and Avi had discovered it was possible to have a ten-pack. Somehow delicate yellow wings made the muscles on Ty¡¯s arms look even more impressive. Avi wasn¡¯t sure how much becoming a neko would change Ty¡¯s looks, but he suspected it¡¯d just make him look better. ¡°Yeah,¡± Avi agreed. Y frowned a bit. ¡°Not that I¡¯m worried about Kim falling in love or anything, but, well¡­¡± He motioned to Ty again, then grinned at Avi. ¡°We need to make an entrance.¡± ¡°Something more interesting than¡­¡± Avi motioned at Ty, who was flexing after his win. ¡°That?¡± Y sat back, mismatched eyes squinting at the fire. ¡°Yes. Unfortunately, Ty is very interesting. I don¡¯t know what we could do that would be more interesting than him that wouldn¡¯t end in death.¡± Avi nodded slowly, thinking it over. ¡°Well¡­ No promises about it not ending in death, but I do have an idea¡­¡± Cycle 47 (5) The dracoraptors formed a loose circle around the silver fairy, sniffing him. This was their friend. They would not eat him today. The other fairies dropped their useless invisibility spell. The dracoraptors glanced at their leader, who huffed in annoyance. A black fairy flew up to the silver one and stopped. The other three moved around them, heading towards the exit. The silver fairy made calming sounds, pulling a familiar leather thing out of the air. Making more calming sounds, he used magic. Suddenly there were two of the leather things. The dracoraptors sniffed the new leather thing. It smelled like leather and magic. The silver fairy moved slowly, holding up the old leather thing. This was a familiar ritual. He¡¯d try to slide it over one of the dracoraptor¡¯s snouts, and if they let him, he¡¯d try to sit on their back. Only two of the pack were ever interested in this. The leader clicked to the two who weren¡¯t, and together they slipped away through the grass. There were three other fairies somewhere on the floor. Three fairies who wouldn¡¯t be expecting an ambush from behind¡­ ***** Dear Diary, If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. AVI AND Y RODE THE DRACORAPTORS DOWN HERE!!! I still can¡¯t believe it. I mean, I knew he¡¯s been getting pretty consistent with them letting him ride them instead of trying to eat him, but I didn¡¯t think they were at the point where he could control them yet. Well, ¡°control¡± is a strong word. I guess mostly he just pointed them at something interesting and they ran towards it. But eventually they got here! It was just after noon, and we were all in the diner having lunch when the guys got here. Avi is thrilled about the dracoraptors being here. Y said he was just helping get the second one down so I could ride it. Also he was positive the instant he got off the raptor it would eat him, and please help. I helped by giving them food. Y managed to not die. Kimi thought it was kinda hilarious but assured him he was very brave for trying in the first place. Unlike the other three guys, who were staying as far away from the huge unpredictable murder machines as possible. Which is understandable. So yeah, I got to ride a dracoraptor around this afternoon! Avi stayed on the other one, because riding one of those things has been his dream pretty much since the day we found them. I had to drag him off when it got dark. No one else wanted a turn, which I¡¯m not surprised about. The raptors kinda did whatever they wanted, but that¡¯s fine. They climbed up to the walkway and raced around on the handrails, which was super fun. They like it better up there than down on the ground, so we might leave them there. I mean, we¡¯re leaving them there tonight. ¡­We should probably warn the kobolds about that. And anyone else who¡¯s likely to come to our floor before- OH HECK. The walkway is where the treasure chest is! It¡¯s the shortcut to our floor from Floor 97! Tomorrow someone for sure is gonna try climbing out through the chest and will immediately be eaten! I have to go put a note somewhere in the chest to watch out for raptors! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (6) Dear Diary, Yesterday was the big symphony! It was epic! Avi and Mika and everyone did a great job! It started at three in the afternoon, and lasted until almost seven. I¡¯m sure someone who knows about music would have some deep insights into how it was set up, themes, and something about emotions and souls. I just thought it was really good. There was an intermission about halfway through so everyone could get snacks and drinks. Nat and Gin and I made a bunch of cheese sandwiches and set out fruit and bags of chips. Nothing exciting. Then after the symphony there was a formal party. Lewis had his bow tie on again, which always makes everyone happy. We still haven¡¯t convinced him to wear a monocle yet tho. The party wrapped up at like one in the morning, and we were all dead. So that¡¯s why I didn¡¯t write yesterday. Sorry. This morning the dire wolves all got baths, which they enjoy. Mostly because it means they get an insane amount of attention and love. They¡¯re now super fluffy and smell amazing. Oh, I think about a third of the kobolds immediately fell in love with Ty when we showed up. Some didn¡¯t recognize him at first, which I can¡¯t blame anyone for. Aya was the one of us who hung out with the kobolds least. And she always wore a hoodie. I don¡¯t know how, but someone convinced Ty to wear the guy version of bikini armor, which is just a necklace. Wearing anything else on your torso negates the armor, so he¡¯s walking around without a shirt on. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I mean, if I looked that good without a shirt on I¡¯d be tempted, too. Anyways, Ty is extremely popular with the kobolds. He¡¯s so popular that he went back to our floor after the symphony and hasn¡¯t left. I can¡¯t blame him. He never has been good with crowds. Oh, the dracoraptors are back on their floor. They enjoyed running around on the walkway and attacking everything that moved, which was expected. But they¡¯re very smart, and figured out how to get into the treasure chest. Turns out a key isn¡¯t needed if you want to go from Floor 93 to Floor 93.5! So they got into the maze and murdered everyone. Repeatedly. Since they¡¯re pretty high-level and extremely fast, it took a while to kill them. Avi has decided to not bring them down again. Everyone agrees that¡¯s a good idea. He¡­ He said he only brought them down in the first place to impress me. Which, yep, it worked. I was very impressed. But I kinda wonder if at least part of it was jealousy. I mean, standing next to Ty, Avi isn¡¯t all that impressive. And none of us were exactly subtle about how hot we think he is. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if all the guys were low-key jealous. But then, there¡¯s not much I can do about it. There¡¯s not much Avi can do about it, either. I really don¡¯t think anything has to be done, since Samurai has been flirting with Ty like her life depends on it, and anyone who dares catch his attention risks dismemberment. I¡¯m certainly not going to risk it. Besides, Avi doesn¡¯t need to look impressive next to anyone. I like how he looks. ¡­In general, I mean. With the whole race changing thing it gets complicated. His personality never changes, and that¡¯s the important part. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (7) Dear Diary, I might have to officially change to only writing every other day, or else I¡¯ll keep feeling bad about missing days. But then, I don¡¯t want to only write every other day. What if something super exciting happens, and I want to write about it, but it¡¯s an off day? Then by the next day I¡¯ll have forgotten about it! Maybe instead of thinking ¡°I need to write every day¡± I should think ¡°I¡¯ll write whenever I feel like it¡±. That sounds more reasonable, yeah. Anyways, Samantha got here today! That¡¯s pretty much the most interesting thing to have happened in the past¡­ four days. Yep. She said she had fun on her solo run. I think she¡¯s trying to separate herself from the twins a bit. They spent so long as a hive mind that when they became separate people again they didn¡¯t know how to function. Samuel and Samurai spend most of their time together, and they kinda expect Samantha to join them. I can see how she could have easily lost her sense of self, and needs to figure out who she is. I kinda wonder what it would be like to be in a hive mind, but it scares me, too. I mean, sharing your thoughts is always dangerous, but being forced to always share all of them? With no way to stop? It sounds freaky. But then, I didn¡¯t have a twin. I don¡¯t think I had any siblings, so maybe I just don¡¯t understand something. Or something. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. I don¡¯t remember having a sibling. But I might be wrong. I haven¡¯t really¡­ thought about it in a while, but there are a lot of details I don¡¯t remember any more. Like, I remember I had a job that involved putting things on shelves. And it had something to do with the color red. But that¡¯s about it. Was it a big store? A little store? Did I work full time or part time? Was I going to college? Who were my friends, what did I do for fun? I don¡¯t remember. It¡¯s fuzzy. And the more time I spend here, having fun with everyone in the dungeon, the fuzzier things from before the dungeon get. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s a bad thing, though. I mean, we¡¯re never going back. That much is clear. I¡¯ll probably never have to stock shelves ever again. Yay? So does it matter if I don¡¯t remember? I know Lily thinks we should try to remember on principle. They¡¯re our memories, and we should keep them. And I kinda agree with that. But then Avi and Kimi insist that forgetting is a good thing, and we shouldn¡¯t look back. I guess¡­ I guess that¡¯s the difference between someone who had a happy childhood and someone who didn¡¯t. I like my memories. Lily likes hers. We don¡¯t want to lose them. But Avi and Kimi can¡¯t forget fast enough. I don¡¯t know exactly what they want to forget, although I can guess for both. I can¡¯t blame them for being ok with erasing everything. I think soonish I¡¯ll have forgotten everything, and it won¡¯t even be worth thinking about. I hope I don¡¯t worry too much about life before the dungeon. So, to future me: Don¡¯t worry. Life was always pretty ok. Keep being happy. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 47 (8) Dear Diary, Basketball is overrated. What¡¯s even the point of throwing a ball to see if it goes into a hoop somewhere? It¡¯s not like that accomplishes anything. There aren¡¯t any real-life skills that are benefited from it. And I¡¯m not just saying that cuz the Floor 2 kobolds challenged us catgirls to a game and we totally lost. ¡­Ok, that¡¯s exactly the reason I¡¯m saying it. The guys did a little better, mostly because of Ty. Ty is tall, and apparently played on his high school team. Samuel and Staab were pretty good, but they both played other sports. So they get the whole ¡°put ball in place¡± concept, and know how to run around a patch of dirt to get the ball, but they don¡¯t have the techniques. Y is¡­ Well, he¡¯s surprisingly good at throwing a ball into a hoop. He says it¡¯s just math, and no one can deny he¡¯s good at math. The problem is, there are other people playing. And half the players don¡¯t want him to have the ball. He kinda forgets about that, and most of the time the ball was stolen from him just before he got to throw it. And Avi. Poor Avi. Avi¡­ is not good at sports. At least, he¡¯s not good at sports where a group of people suddenly start running at you if you get the ball. Even if it¡¯s a friendly game, which this wasn¡¯t. On our team, Mika and Samurai were the best. They actually knew what they were doing. I kinda figured it out by the end, but not really. Sports never was my thing. Lily was¡­ ok. But she kept trying to be ladylike or something, which apparently means she couldn¡¯t run. Running around is kinda the point of sports, so yeah. She didn¡¯t help a whole lot. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Kimi kept getting taken out for cheating. One of the rules was no teleporting, and she couldn¡¯t help herself. Also she couldn¡¯t remember which hoop belonged to which team, so she scored a couple points for the kobolds. Y thought that was hilarious. No one else did. Anyways, yeah, I won¡¯t be playing basketball again for a long while. I think Avi will never play again. The air elementals said players showed up on their floor like an hour ago, so tomorrow we¡¯ll have to be in our shops. The fun and games part of the cycle has come to an end. Hopefully next cycle will be just as fun. Goodnight, Dungeon!
***** Kimi flipped through one of Y¡¯s notebooks, frowning slightly. She couldn¡¯t find what she was looking for. Y came into the room and smiled at her. ¡°Hey, when you were figuring out ranch dressing, why didn¡¯t you bring any slime up here?¡± she asked, closing the book. He grinned. ¡°Nikki threatened to remove my eyeballs with a rusty spoon if any slime got within a mile and a half of her kitchen. Or something to that effect. Why?¡± Kimi nodded. ¡°I¡¯m trying to figure out their consistency. They¡¯re semisolid, but in some ways act more like a liquid.¡± ¡°True¡­ I wouldn¡¯t qualify them as a liquid. They hold their shape too well,¡± he said, sitting down next to her. She grinned. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t either, but would the misting device?¡± Y¡¯s eyes lost focus as he thought. ¡°They¡­ It wouldn¡¯t¡­ Hrm. I think no.¡± Kimi leaned closer to him. ¡°How much do you want to bet, Upsilon?¡± ¡°They¡¯re acidic,¡± he said, laughing slightly. ¡°The slime would corrode through whatever you put it in.¡± ¡°Even magically strengthened glass?¡± she asked sweetly. He flicked open his inventory, closed it, and took her hand. ¡°Ok, let¡¯s go collect slime samples.¡± She laughed as he pulled her out the door. Cycle 47 (Admin)
Warning: A slime is off its designated floor.
The Admin frowned, glaring at the notification. ¡°What happened?¡± Emmy asked, watching him from where she was snipping lengths of wire. ¡°Nothing, just a slime,¡± he said, waving the notification away. She looked concerned. ¡°What about a slime?¡± ¡°One escaped. I¡­¡± He sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll be back in ten minutes.¡± She nodded, focusing on her wire again. He teleported to his office. The problem with having a monster that could slowly dissolve anything was they could also dissolve the ground beneath them. He¡¯d made the ground on slime floors acid-proof after the first dozen or so times a slime had fallen into the floor below them, but on occasion one still broke through. He summoned an iced coffee, scanning the floors for a massive hole somewhere. There weren¡¯t any. He sat forwards, scanning for small holes. None. Wondering if the warning had been a mistake, he scanned all floors for slimes. There was a tiny slime on Floor 93. It was in the general store. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. He pulled up a video and watched as Kimi and Y poked it with various objects. They fed it, fully aware it was alive. The slime twitched every time they spoke, moving towards the sound. The Admin was about to decide this was fine when they pulled four vials out of their inventories, each containing a tiny slime. Wonderful; they had one of each subtype. ¡°Nope.¡± He pulled them and the slimes into the Void and joined them. Kimi grinned at him. ¡°Hi!¡± Y bowed slightly. ¡°Hello.¡± ¡°What are you doing?¡± the Admin asked flatly. Kimi snickered. ¡°Well, we were trying to see if the slimes were a liquid, and then we were going to see what would happen if we put one into the misting device, but then we realized they¡¯re sentient.¡± ¡°Putting a sentient creature into a misting device would be unethical,¡± Y continued seamlessly. ¡°There¡¯s also the possibility that turning the slime to mist would cause each droplet to become a sentient slime, with the capacity to grow unendingly, which would be bad.¡± ¡°Mostly because Nikki would murder us.¡± ¡°So we were trying to determine what about the slime made it sentient, and how it-¡° ¡°Please stop,¡± the Admin said. ¡°Just¡­ Slimes belong on the slime floors. Can you keep them there? Please?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± The Admin looked at Kimi¡¯s grin and the complete lack of emotion on Y¡¯s face. ¡°Actually, no, could you leave the slimes alone?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± The Admin glared at them. ¡°Whatever you¡¯re thinking, don¡¯t do it,¡± he warned. Y glanced at Kimi. ¡°But I-¡° She elbowed him in the ribs. ¡°We promise to not do anything slime-related in the future.¡± ¡°Except fight them when we need to pass through their floors,¡± Y added. ¡°Thank you,¡± the Admin said. ¡°Good-bye.¡± He sent them back to Floor 93 before they could ask about technicalities. Sighing, he looked at the slimes. Maybe he should let them play with the slimes. They¡¯d undoubtedly figure out something interes- He shook his head, clearing out the insanity. After sending the slimes to Floor 95 where they belonged, he teleported back to Emmy¡¯s place. Cycle 47 (9) Dear Diary, The players are here. They got here yesterday, so they¡¯re probably close to pushing the button by now. Ox, Tig and Larissa passed through. Ox tried to kiss me again. Well, he started out by apologizing for trying to kiss me when I was a dwarf, which was a step in the right direction, then a left-hand turn. I tried explaining that I don¡¯t want to kiss him no matter what I am, which made him laugh and try to kiss me again. The only other person in the diner was Samuel, who very helpfully shot Ox in the head with a crossbow bolt. Then shot Ox in the face when he tried to come in again. I think Ox got the message, but now he might think I¡¯m dating Samuel. Oh well, some things can¡¯t be helped. In other news, Lily and Staab have officially broken up. They¡­ Yeah, it¡¯s all drama. Things just went from not-ok to bad to worse, until Staab had enough and said it was over. He¡¯s staying on Floor 97 now. Drama, all the drama. Anyways, next cycle we¡¯re going to choose between goblin or kobold race. Y says there¡¯s nothing in the universe that can convince him to be a kobold again, so we had to have another option. Goblins and kobolds are the same height, so we¡¯ll do them on the same cycle. Then when we get to them, we¡¯ll do hobgoblins and half-dragons on the same cycle, too. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Half-dragons aren¡¯t quite ¡°kobold but tall¡±, but they¡¯re close enough. I think everyone¡¯s decided what they¡¯re going to be. Avi and I are going to be goblins, then half-dragons. Kimi and Y will be goblins. Mika and Lily say they¡¯re going to be kobolds. I don¡¯t know what Ty and the Sams will be yet, but I suspect kobolds. Staab will probably be a goblin. Oh!!! I forgot to write about the mattress test! Ok, so, we got a bunch of mattresses and duplicated them until we had a hundred. Unfortunately, the ceiling on our floor is less than a hundred mattresses high. So we decided to just make it a tower of fifty mattresses. We couldn¡¯t climb up without the tower falling over, but Mika remembered we have a walkway! So we just jumped from the walkway to the mattress tower. None of us could feel the marble at the bottom, so I guess none of us are truly princesses. Sad. Then we all got on at once. Our weight wasn¡¯t perfectly balanced or something, because the tower tipped and fell over. With us on top. Thankfully teleportation is a thing, or we would have been super dead. The falling mattresses knocked down a tree and flattened a couple bushes, and we¡¯re all very glad the tower didn¡¯t fall in the direction of anyone¡¯s shop. It would have been hilarious if they had, though. I can just imagine giving the Admin a migraine by explaining how a mattress made a hole in someone¡¯s roof. Anyways, we put the mattresses back into our shared inventory after that. I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯ll be taken out when the cycle resets, which is fine. We don¡¯t need a hundred mattresses. No one does. Unless Lewis wants them, and can set them up to be a giant bed. I¡¯ll tell Nat to go ask him! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (1) The slime sat in its corner of the floor, slowly dissolving a shield. This was good. A bubble of gas slowly formed inside the slime around the shield, and made its way out with a blorp. This had a negative effect on the air around the slime. Blip. The slime twitched, sensing a sound. It observed the corridor around it, and found- A minuscule slime was sitting next to the large slime, observing it. They observed each other for some seconds, until the small slime moved to a wall and stretched out, trying to fill the corridor like the big one was. Deep in the large slime¡¯s core, a long-dormant instinct stirred. The young slime gave up, bouncing back to its normal shape. It moved away from the wall, jiggling mirthfully. The adult slime felt the instinct spring to life, infusing every atom of its being. Tiny baby, must protecc! ***** Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Dear Diary, Being a goblin is fun! Their ears are about as big as catgirl ears, but further down on the head. So I didn¡¯t feel half-deafened when the cycle started, like I usually do. That was nice. Goblins don¡¯t have any magic buffs, but they make up for that with strength buffs. They also have a teeny tiny speed buff, which isn¡¯t really enough to affect us. Or at least I don¡¯t think so. Kimi says she can think faster. I don¡¯t really know what that would feel like, so I¡¯m not sure if I think faster or not. Anyways, this cycle we split up into parties based on race. The goblin party is me, Avi, Kimi, Y, Staab, and Samantha. The kobold party is Mika, Lily, Aya, Samurai and Samuel. Oh yeah, Aya is Aya again. She said she was getting too much attention as a guy. Samuel teased that Y was losing his harem to him, which made Y fake-mad. Lily pointed out that if their party was Samuel¡¯s harem, that would include his twin sister. Mika and Samurai told her she clearly hadn¡¯t seen enough anime. Y asked if Avi would mind being a part of his harem, and took the mildly confused stuttering and pointing at me as a yes. And so the harem balance of the universe was restored. Or something. I don¡¯t get it. I mean, I do, in that it¡¯s a stupid thing meant to annoy or embarrass certain people. And other people think it¡¯s hilarious. But other than that I don¡¯t get it. Aaaanyways, we aren¡¯t quite speedrunning this time, but we are trying to get through fast. We¡¯ve made friends with pretty much everyone, we know how to get through all the floors, and we don¡¯t need to take our time. Before we were having fun exploring, but we¡¯ve explored everything now. The Admin changes things on occasion to stop things from getting too boring. Or at least I think that¡¯s why he changes things. Maybe he has some secret Admin reason to change things up. Maybe everything will die if changes aren¡¯t made every so often. ¡­Nah, that¡¯s dumb. It¡¯s just to keep things from getting super boring. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (2) Dear Diary, Velociraptors are not the best pets in the universe, but they come pretty close. I mean, how many pets out there like to cuddle on your shoulders, then jump off and eat anything that tries to hurt you? Not that all that many things try to hurt us. Sure, there are carnivorous plants and mimics and such, but we can avoid them pretty easily. Also having a raptor pet makes Avi happy. I don¡¯t need anything more than that. Staab doesn¡¯t really like the velociraptors. They keep chewing on him. I think it¡¯s one of those ¡°you think this animal is dangerous so it acts dangerous¡± things. Like with dogs. If you think a dog is gonna bite you, that automatically makes the dog 80% more likely to bite you. Staab thinks the raptors are gonna bite him, so they do. He asked why we don¡¯t ever kidnap the wolves on Floor 7, like we¡¯d planned a long time ago, and that¡¯s a good point. We¡¯ve kidnapped the raptors enough, we should change to kidnapping wolves. At least for a cycle or two. That¡¯d be a fun change of pace. Anyways, we¡¯re making it through the dungeon pretty fast. We¡¯re already at Floor 46, with nothing exciting having happened. It¡¯s just been a nice stroll through the dungeon. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡­I¡¯m gonna have a horrible time if we ever have to act like real players. I like strolling through the dungeon! I don¡¯t want to fight anyone! Sometimes I kinda want to write the Admin and ask that he not send me to the next dungeon, but that would leave me all alone. I want that less. We do have 52 more cycles to get ready, it¡¯s not like we¡¯ll be going anytime soon. I think I won¡¯t worry about it until Cycle 85. Fifteen cycles should be enough to prepare mentally. And who knows, maybe by then I¡¯ll have changed how I think about things! I doubt I¡¯ll change too much, but it might be enough to be ok with being truly player-like. Although the Admin does want us to act like ourselves, not real players. So I guess I shouldn¡¯t change at all. This cycle the kobolds are going to have a furniture-making contest. There are five teams, and they¡¯re going to make a full dining room set, then bedroom set, then living room set. Just to see who makes the best furniture, I guess. Then anyone who wants new furniture will know who to ask for it. They had one way back in Cycle 10, before we got there, mostly to get everyone furniture. Now everyone has houses and furniture, but we have access to a whole lot more stuff than we did 38 cycles ago. For us catgirls, our houses came pre-furnished. If we didn¡¯t like something, either we stole a replacement from the inn or asked Mika if she could fix it. She gave my dresser a lid that can open instead of just being all drawers. I might ask the kobolds for a couch or something. Something to stretch out on that isn¡¯t a bed. That¡¯d be nice. But I¡¯d wait until all the kobolds get their stuff, just to be polite. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (Admin) The Admin collapsed onto the couch, putting his head in Emmy¡¯s lap. She smiled, setting her book down. ¡°Bad meeting?¡± she asked, running her fingers through his hair. ¡°3¡¯s catgirls are in revolt again,¡± he sighed, annoyed. ¡°Again?¡± she echoed. He rubbed his face. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re just bored. They keep sending messages through his dungeon and organizing uprisings. Apparently talking to them is absolutely out of the question. It¡¯s so far out of the question that asking the Director if he can talk to them is¡­¡± ¡°Out of the question?¡± Emmy finished. ¡°Yeah.¡± He looked around. ¡°What are you reading?¡± ¡°One of the books from the book club. It¡¯s not all that good.¡± ¡°Hmm.¡± The Admin closed his eyes, relaxing. Emmy went back to reading. He let himself doze, enjoying the feeling of being near someone who understood. Emmy was the only person he could talk to openly, and he loved her for it. Being next to her, no touching or talking necessary, made him happy. A faint ding interrupted his haze, making him cringe and open his eyes. Admin 3 wanted to join him in his office. Great. Wait. The Admin cursed, scrambling to his feet. ¡°Have to go, sorry!¡± He teleported back to his office, smoothing his hair. Quickly pulling up a few random screens, he summoned an iced coffee and chugged half. Dropping into his chair, Admin 6 sent an invite. Admin 3 appeared, looking annoyed. ¡°Hey, I¡­ you¡¯re right.¡± Admin 6 minimized a screen at random, turning to fully face Admin 3. ¡°About?¡± ¡°The options are either reset everything, or ask the Director if I can arrange something with the non-players. You talked to her about your non-playerss, right? How should I approach the matter?¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you let me talk to them?¡± Admin 6 asked. ¡°Let me be your NPC Whisperer.¡± Admin 3 thought it over, then asked for a chair. Once seated, he pulled up a message box and gave control to Admin 6. Admin 6 took a sip of coffee and began to type.
To: Cedar (Item 149), Pine (Item 150), Cypress (Item 151), Birch (Item 152), Oak (Item 153), Willow (Item 154) From: Admin Subject: Revolt Hey, I¡¯m sure taking control of my dungeon has been very fun, but would you mind not? You¡¯re making it incredibly difficult for me to do my job. Thanks, Admin
Admin 6 sat back, looking over the names. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Admin 3 asked, sending the message. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Now we wait for a reply,¡± Admin 6 said. ¡°Birch is the ringleader, isn¡¯t she?¡± Admin 3 was about to reply when he paused, pulling up a reply message.
To: Admin From: Birch (Item 152) Subject: Re: Revolt No. It¡¯s too fun.
Admin 6 smirked. ¡°How did you know?¡± Admin 3 asked, hitting reply and sending the screen to him. ¡°You named a girl ¡®Birch¡¯, what did you expect?¡±
Is there anything more fun I could give you to do?
¡°What difference does a name make?¡± Admin 3 asked, sending the message. ¡°They¡¯re all tree themed.¡± ¡°That¡¯s such a stupid statement I¡¯m not going to bother explaining.¡± ¡°Oh, shove it up your ass. Why are you being so nice to them? We¡¯re Admins, we can threaten them a little.¡± Admin 6 leaned back. ¡°Nah, see what they ask for first. Might be a minute. Coffee?¡± Admin 3 begrudgingly accepted, and Admin 6 checked what screens he had up. Oxygen levels were normal, a player he¡¯d tagged was being dissolved by a slime, shared inventories continued to be popular, and there was a new song from the mosquito band. Nice. It took six minutes for the catgirls to respond.
As long as you ask, we do have a few requests: Let us change our names and magic colors. Let us change our outfits and hair styles. Give us musical instruments. Give us more food ingredients to work with, preferably base ingredients. Give us art supplies, in a variety of colors that don¡¯t change. Give us gears in different shapes and sizes. Give us books to read. Let us leave our floor when there aren¡¯t players on it. Let us talk to other people in the dungeon freely, specifically the wyverns on Floor 12. That should be it for now. Thanks! XD
Admin 3 was horrified. Admin 6 was also horrified, but for a different reason. ¡°They want to change their colors?¡± Admin 3 asked. ¡°Why do they need gears and food ingredients?¡± ¡°Let me reply,¡± Admin 6 said, horror turning to anger. Admin 3, still wondering why they wanted to change their clothes, sent him a screen.
Here are some rules I can¡¯t break: No two creatures in the dungeon can have the same name, and no two catgirls on a floor can share a color. So. You will be allowed to change your name and color once, at the beginning of next cycle. Figure out what colors you all want beforehand. If you can¡¯t get your preferred name, sorry but you can¡¯t say I didn¡¯t warn you. Outfits: Allowed. Hair styles: Letting you change these would be dangerous. Sorry. Musical instruments: Allowed. Ingredients: Allowed. Art supplies: I can give you different types, but anything with a customizable color will automatically change when you touch it. Sorry. Gears: Allowed. Please don¡¯t make any war machines. Books: Don¡¯t have any. Write your own. Notebooks are available. Leaving the floor: Not allowed. Talking to other people: Sending stones will again be allowed. It would be appreciated if you didn¡¯t use them to organize uprisings. Note: All changes will happen at cycle reset.
Admin 6 gave the screen back. Admin 3 had a fit. ¡°Why do they need these things? You can¡¯t tell them I can¡¯t do things! I¡¯m not giving them sending stones again! If you tell them hair changes are dangerous they¡¯ll just keep asking for them. Why should I give them musical instruments? Do we even have those? Why-¡± ¡°Write whatever you want!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°It¡¯s your dungeon! We do have all those things, everything I said you could do you can do. Phrase it however you want.¡± ¡°I just don¡¯t see why they need it!¡± ¡°Because they¡¯re bored. They¡¯re people. People need things to do.¡± ¡°They have things to do! Tend their shops!¡± ¡°Yeah, that no players are at like ninety percent of the cycle!¡± Admin 3 shook his head, looking away. ¡°You care about non-players way too much.¡± Admin 6 smiled bitterly. ¡°Probably. But I don¡¯t have any trouble with them.¡± Still shaking his head, Admin 3 sent the message and vanished. Admin 6 groaned, leaning back. He finished his coffee, rubbed his face, and teleported to Emmy¡¯s place. She looked up from her book when he appeared. ¡°Everything ok?¡± He watched her for a few seconds. ¡°Did- Was I ever¡­ I don¡¯t know. You were never bored, right? I think I tried to give everyone creative things to do. Right?¡± She got up and took his hands. ¡°The first three or so cycles we were too busy figuring things out. Then things got boring, until cycle¡­ eight? We had Lewis ask for a few things, then more things, until every cycle we got new stuff to play with.¡± She smiled. ¡°It¡¯s not that you didn¡¯t listen, it¡¯s that we didn¡¯t ask.¡± He sighed. ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Although, if it would make you feel better to give everyone in the dungeon access to a theme park floor with roller coasters and a dolphin show, I¡¯m sure we wouldn¡¯t complain,¡± she said, grinning. The Admin laughed. ¡°That¡­¡± He paused. ¡°Actually, I could do that.¡± He looked at her. ¡°Want a theme park?¡± Cycle 48 (3) Dear Diary, We¡¯re back home! The others got here before us, so everyone¡¯s home. Kimi got a bunch of pickled things in her shop this cycle. I always had pickle slices, but she has full pickles. She also got pickled onions, pickled eggs, pickled pig¡¯s feet, pickled herring, pickled jalape?os, and five types of pickled cucumbers. Gin was ecstatic when she found out. None of us had ever had pickled herring before. Maybe it¡¯s the cat part of us, but we all love it. Aya was the only one who¡¯d had pickled pig¡¯s feet before, so she showed us how to eat those. They¡¯re not as good as the fish, but not as gross as I thought they might be. The onions and jalape?os are exactly what they sound like, but the pickled eggs were weird. I don¡¯t know why they exist. Anyways, now that I have pickled jalape?os and non-pickled jalape?os, I¡¯m gonna try making hot sauce! Mika and Y have both told me making hot sauce in my kitchen is a bad idea. So instead I¡¯m going to be making it on the air elemental¡¯s floor. Their floor is big and open, and they can disperse air super fast if they need to. Y knows a surprising amount about making hot sauce. He said his parents and grandparents owned restaurants, and they made their own hot sauce. I guess that¡¯s why he felt ok offering to take over the diner when I was in the party with Mika and Larissa and the guys. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I kinda want to ask what kind of restaurant it was, but it feels like one of those ¡°don¡¯t talk about it¡± things. ¡­Mika said her dad made hot sauce once a year and they had to leave on vacation for like a week immediately after to let the house air out. She didn¡¯t offer any recipes or cooking tips, but she did offer to taste test whatever I come up with. So that¡¯s good! Oh! Lex and Tim made it all the way to Floor 93 with us! So we have velociraptor pets here again! Avi is, once again, very happy about that. He let them run around on the walkway and stay there, which they love. I think it¡¯s something to do with the clouds, it makes them feel very sneaky. When they jump out and attack people up there it¡¯s always a surprise. Especially for the people who didn¡¯t know there were velociraptors up there. Especially especially for the people who remembered that last cycle there was a dracoraptor up there. It¡¯s hard to look serious and apologetic when an annoyed kobold is ranting about being given a heart attack by my pets. It¡¯s just too funny. Altho I think if next cycle we bring wolves down instead of raptors, everyone will be so happy they¡¯ll throw us a party. A party in honor of Avi and I having fluffy non-murderous pets would be nice. But then we¡¯d have to have a party for the dire wolves, so they don¡¯t feel out. But that¡¯s ok. The kobolds know how to throw multiple parties in a week. I¡¯ll leave it up to them. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (4) Dear Diary, Floor 93.5 has suddenly gotten a whole lot bigger. The kobolds don¡¯t know why, they say they woke up and the wall was way further away than it had been the day before. We went and explored a bit (by climbing over the hedge wall), and there isn¡¯t anything there. It¡¯s just a big, flat area with grass on it. Nothing exciting. So the kobolds are going to have a big race tomorrow. And then a barbecue party. Mika and Emmy spent all day today making grills. Some people were like ¡°what will we use as fuel?¡± and before Kimi and Y could run off to make plutonium out of strawberry jello or something, Staab reminded us Floor 92 is a lava floor. There¡¯s plenty of coal and fire there. Also, fire magic is a thing that exists. We won¡¯t have any problem cooking things. Lily said maybe we should ask the Admin if it¡¯s ok if we use the floor for a race and barbecue. The kobolds were kinda¡­ uncomfortable about messaging the Admin. They almost always ask Lewis to message the Admin about things, since the dragon is in charge. But then, we¡¯ve never asked permission for a party before. So why start now? Oh yeah! The kobolds were super surprised to see some of us show up as kobolds. They loved it, and I think the people in our group who chose to be kobolds this cycle are now more popular than us who decided to be goblins. Mika is especially popular. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I think some were very disappointed that Aya isn¡¯t Ty any more. Especially with her being a kobold. I won¡¯t deny, Ty would have made a super good-looking kobold. Some people tried hitting on Aya, and the Sams cut them off hard. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ve ever specifically said what their exact relationship is with her, and I don¡¯t know if they ever will, but they made it clear Aya is Not Available. Maybe someone braver than me will eventually ask. Anyways, since speed is a stat that can go up, we checked to see if any of us can join the race tomorrow. Only Avi, Samuel and Lily are slow enough to race. The rest of us are way higher. I¡¯m not all that sad about being left out. I¡¯ll be helping cook, so I wouldn¡¯t race no matter what. Avi says he¡¯ll race, and Samuel answers just about any ¡°do you want to¡± question with ¡°yes¡±. I don¡¯t know if Lily will race or not. She¡¯s not really a running person. But on the other hand, if she ran it might impress Staab. Or maybe someone else. Or something. They still aren¡¯t talking to each other. Staab has been talking to Samantha a lot, and Lily isn¡¯t totally ok with that. Not that she can do anything about it, since she refuses to talk to him, but it does bother her. I just hope that soon they talk it over like adults and all the drama will go away. I hate drama. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (5) Dear Diary, The race went super well! They let the dire wolves join and have their own race at the same time as the kobold race, so that was epic. Bear won the wolf race, and Siri got second place. I forget who got third, I was too busy congratulating Best Girl Siri and giving her treats to notice who came next. Oh yeah, the winner of the kobold race was Zoe, who¡¯s in Mika and Avi¡¯s band. A kobold named Owe got second place, and Samuel got third. Avi got fourteenth place. Lily decided to not race at all. I don¡¯t blame her. She probably wouldn¡¯t have done very well. After the race, the barbecue was epic! Everything was grilled to perfection. Gin made three types of barbecue sauce of varying spiciness, so everyone was happy. Lewis was able to be there today, too. He used one of the turn-into-catboi potions he got from Kimi. Since we¡¯re all goblins and kobolds this cycle, he was still taller than anyone else on the floor. But a normal level of taller, not ¡°literally a giant dragon¡± taller. He didn¡¯t get as much attention as he had last time, which I think is good. People should think of Lewis as the kinda average, decent guy he is, not as Bonecrusher the Black: Lord of Kobolds. I mean, he is Bonecrusher the Black, but he¡¯s also a person. He needs friends, not just minions. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Anyways, the pickled jalape?os were very popular today. I set out a couple jars, and they were all gone within ten minutes. So I set out a bunch more, and they were all cleared out by the end of the day. Cooking is kinda weird. Like, if you pour your heart and soul into making something delicious, people will appreciate it. Usually. But then if all you do is put a bag of potato chips on the table, people appreciate that just as much. If not more. It¡¯s like, if people love jars of jalape?os and bags of potato chips so much, what¡¯s the point of putting in more effort? I know that if all I did was set out jalape?os and potato chips, people would get tired of them super fast. But it still sucks a tiny bit that the amount of effort and love put into something doesn¡¯t directly correlate to the amount of appreciation people have for it. Although it does make things easy sometimes. But then, the dracoraptors seem to be able to tell when I don¡¯t put effort into some food, and refuse to eat it. Except Charlie, who will eat a whole block of cheese all by itself. The others, tho, kinda refuse to eat anything that took me less than ten minutes to make. Actually, I should test that. I bet if I made ten things of increasing complexity, they¡¯d eat them in order of most complex to least. And I mean complex for me. Sushi is kinda complex, but all I have to do is pull it out of my inventory. They¡¯d probably refuse to eat it, even though they eat things with the fish and rice in them. ¡­Ok, I need to write out a menu to test this. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 48 (6) Dear Diary, The players got here tonight. It¡¯s the group who likes to speedrun, so the rest of the players might not get here till day after tomorrow. I think they kinda suspect we¡¯re players. None of them said anything, but they squinted at me. Avi says they acted suspicious around him. I don¡¯t know what they¡¯ll do with the information that we¡¯re semi-secretly players, but they have it now. Maybe they¡¯ll ask the Admin about it. Although I don¡¯t know what he¡¯d say to them, either. He¡¯ll probably brush it off like ¡°don¡¯t worry about it¡±, honestly. And unless they make a big deal about it, I don¡¯t see him volunteering information. In other news, the dracoraptors are 100% able to tell how much effort I personally put into cooking something. They just about refused to eat the sushi I offered, but ate the fish balls rolled in rice and decorated with seaweed bows instantly. Interesting, and also pretty funny. Oh, except Charlie, who immediately grabbed the plate of cheese slices and ran off with it. But that¡¯s just Charlie. We can write her out of the equation whenever straight cheese is available. Avi was impressed, and wonders if they can tell the difference between original food and duplicated food. Like, if I made one lasagna, then duplicated it, would they refuse to eat the duplicated one? And can they tell the difference in non-food things? If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. So next cycle we¡¯re going to make necklaces for them. Then we¡¯ll duplicate the necklaces, and buy a couple necklaces from the store. We¡¯ll see how the raptors react to them all. If they fight over the hand-made ones and ignore the duplicated and store-bought ones, we¡¯ll know they can tell. I¡­ have no clue what we¡¯ll do after that, but we¡¯ll know. Maybe if someone ever needs to know if they have a duplicate or original of something, we can let the raptors inspect it? But duplicates can¡¯t be duplicated, so why wouldn¡¯t they just try duplicating it? I don¡¯t know. Maybe someone will find a use for their ability. If it even works in the first place. Samuel asked Y why he didn¡¯t want to be a kobold again. I guess he¡¯s having fun as one, and would become a kobold again. Y said he¡¯d be afraid of never being able to change race again if he turned back into a kobold. Which¡­ almost sounds like a valid reason. But, I know Y pretty good at this point. He was lying. And the way Kimi reacted, instantly changing the topic, yeah there¡¯s a different reason. Probably a super personal reason. That I shouldn¡¯t ask about. Because it¡¯s none of my business. But I asked Avi and he agreed Y acts like he has some kind of kobold-related trauma. Avi thinks it might have to do with suddenly looking like everyone else. Which, given no one can tell what human race(-s?) he is, is a decent guess. I think it might be more related to how he wasn¡¯t given a choice in being kobold. Like, waking up one day with cat ears and a tail was weird. But waking up as a short bipedal reptile? Without warning? That must have been¡­ kinda scary. Maybe someday we¡¯ll ask. But not anytime soon. Don¡¯t want to pry or anything. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 49 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! This time, we¡¯re all goliaths! It¡¯s funny going from a tiny, 4-foot tall goblin to a 7-foot tall¡­ basically human with glow-in-the-dark circuit board tattoos all over us. Without hair. Honestly, not having hair is probably what feels weirdest. That, and how fast we walk. I never noticed it before, but height change does affect how fast we walk. We¡¯re moving through floors slightly faster than average, without even trying. Avi and I are our own party again this cycle. Aya is with the Sams, and everyone else is together. Which, given that Staab and Lily still aren¡¯t talking, must be super awkward. This cycle, we¡¯ve kidnapped the wolves off Floor 7 instead of the velociraptors. Not all the wolves, since that would be rude. Just three of them. Everyone in the floors who sees them is like ¡°oh, you have different pets¡± and ¡°are you planning on kidnapping the whole dungeon eventually?¡± I won¡¯t say we are planning on kidnapping the whole dungeon, but¡­ we could. We still have like fifty cycles to go, and if it takes four cycles to fully train a group of pets, we could have like twelve different pets! So if we spend four cycles training these three wolves, then the next four cycles the other three, what animals should we kidnap next? I¡¯ll never do a slime, they¡¯re evil, but maybe mimics would be fun? Oh! Or giant spiders! There are lots of those! Or maybe by then Kimi and Y will have figured out their water bubble thing, and we¡¯ll be able to kidnap sharks! Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I¡¯ll have to talk it over with Avi. Oh yeah, the wolves are named Amy, Red, Bitey, King, Tails, and Bluetooth. We asked the Floor 8 goblins what their names should be, and those were the names we got. The wolves we have with us this cycle are Amy, Tails and Red. Red isn¡¯t really red. He¡¯s more of that rusty grey-brown that people call red when talking about wolf fur color. But it¡¯s red enough for him to be called Red. Tomorrow we¡¯ll find out how the velociraptors react to us having different pets. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be too jealous, since we¡¯re still going to feed them, but Avi isn¡¯t sure. He thinks they might attack the wolves just because they¡¯re new creatures on their floor. Which I can see. I mean, that is their job. Still, I think if they see the wolves are our friends they won¡¯t attack. The spinosaurus might attack, though. We aren¡¯t really super good friends with him yet. Oh, Lily is orange this cycle. It¡¯s kinda weird how when we were stuck with our colors, everyone wanted to change. But now that we can change whenever we want¡­ we haven¡¯t. We all swapped colors once, but after that we went back to our original colors. I just haven¡¯t felt like it, and I guess the others don¡¯t feel like it either. Well, the Sams switched colors a couple times, but they settled pretty quick on what colors they wanted to be. Samantha is brown, Samuel is orange, and Samurai is pink. Samurai rarely uses magic, though. I think she just wanted pink hair. Anyways, I should sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 49 (2)
If you can read this, hit yes. Message will time out in twenty seconds.
Yes
Bear the dire wolf tilted his head at the strange blue thing. It stayed put. Next to him, Balto barked. Bear turned, and the blue thing followed. On his other side, Siri whined and pawed at the air. Bear looked at her, and the blue thing followed again. He got up, sniffing the blue thing. It backed away, quite rudely. He couldn¡¯t smell it. Balto kept barking. Suddenly the blue thing vanished. Balto stopped barking. Siri sniffed the air. Bear went back to eating breakfast. *****
If you can read this, type ¡°YES¡± in the box below. Message will time out in twenty seconds.
Cynoe the yeti frowned at the box and keyboard. Was the Admin¡­ trying to figure out how many people in his dungeon could read? Why? Shrugging, he typed ¡°nope, can¡¯t read¡± and waited for the box to time out. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ***** Dear Diary, Well, the velociraptors tried to attack the wolves, but we were able to stop them. They didn¡¯t really like looking at them, so we left pretty quick. Tim and Lex were sad that they won¡¯t be coming with us. We gave them extra treats to make up for it. Extra treats always help. Oh, this morning apparently the Admin asked if everyone in the dungeon can read. Or, he asked all the NPC¡¯s. We didn¡¯t get the message, but we¡¯re players. I¡¯m pretty sure all the players can read. If they can¡¯t¡­ If they can¡¯t, that¡¯s just sad. Anyways, the novelty has worn off and I think I don¡¯t really like being a goliath. It¡¯s fine, but it¡¯s not me. I don¡¯t want to be big and strong and scary. I¡¯m fine with not being big and strong at all. Becoming a goliath made my kawaii stat go down by ten points. It stayed at 100 for every other race, even goblin! And goblins aren¡¯t really all that cute. Which just makes me wonder, how do stats, like, work? I know, I know, I do stuff and they go up. Until they reach 100. But what exactly is it that goes ¡°hmm, yes, you did a thing and get a +1¡±? Is it like a computer program? An AI? I¡¯m pretty sure the Admin is the only person watching us, and he absolutely isn¡¯t who decides we¡¯ve done good enough to level up in something. Especially not minor skills, like burger flipping or whatever. Oh well. It¡¯s magic. I just have to accept that it might not make sense and I¡¯ll never understand it. Oh!!! So!!! Aya (still Aya, not Ty), was somehow convinced to wear the bikini armor thing this cycle! And yes, she has muscles. It¡¯s not just a Ty thing, Aya looks like she could wrestle a bear. And win. I mean, I knew she used to be a gymnast back in high school, so obviously she had some muscle. But she¡¯s maxxed out her strength stat, and under that loose hoodie that she always wears is a body that¡­ well¡­ I¡¯m gonna stop writing before Avi comes over and decides to read over my shoulder. Goodnight, Dungeon!
P.S. Also the Sams have made it 100% absolutely clear she is Not Available but anyways. Cycle 49 (3) Dear Diary, We¡¯re down on Floor 60 now! Jenny the dragon finally let us see what she was doing with the whole choreographing her wyverns thing. ¡­I feel like that sentence didn¡¯t make sense. Let me try again. Jenny, the dragon on Floor 61, has been training her wyverns. She¡¯s taught them a choreographed flight/dance thing, to music. She didn¡¯t want anyone to see it until it was perfect, and it finally is! So we got to see it! And holy crap it was epic! The wyverns are all a gold color, so it was like watching a flying river of gold. It was just awesome. Avi thinks we should try something similar with the dracoraptors, and everyone else in the entire dungeon thinks that¡¯s a horrible idea. Including, sadly, me. I mean, I love the dracoraptors. And I love Avi. But having a river of gold wyverns gracefully swarming through the sky would not be the same as having a handful of giant murder dinos with temperment issues running around in front of a delicious-looking crowd. It¡¯s just not a good idea. But Samantha and Lily think that some of the kobolds must be into interpretive dance, and getting them to cover themselves in gold and fly around would be pretty cool. Except kobolds can¡¯t fly. So now they¡¯re trying to figure out a way to get kobolds to change color and fly around. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll figure it out by the time we get to our floor. In other news, Amy, Tails and Red are no longer with us. They got eaten by sharks, and are back on their floor. Which is sad, but not unexpected. I mean, they came from Floor 7. They¡¯re super low-level. I think sneezing too hard on one might have killed them. As much as I want to make them our pets and take them everywhere, I kinda think it won¡¯t happen. We need to find pets from below Floor 15. Above that and they¡¯re just too squishy. Avi¡¯s vote is for a giant spider or two. I wouldn¡¯t mind that, but I think other people might. Some people are super afraid of spiders, and seeing a giant one walk onto their floor might seriously freak them out. And if we walk onto too many floors with pets that scare people or try to kill them, someone might ask the Admin to tell us to stop. I¡¯m still hoping Kimi and Y will figure out how to take a shark pet with them. That would be cool. Oh, Staab and Lily apparently have started talking. Since they¡¯re in the same party, it was super sucky for everyone involved that they weren¡¯t on speaking terms. Mika got fed up with it, and told them to act like adults. They still avoid each other as much as possible, but they don¡¯t act like they absolutely hate each other any more. Which is nice. People not hating each other is good. ¡­I¡¯m still extremely glad Avi and I are on our own this cycle. It¡¯s been super fun and drama-free. Life is at its best when things are fun and drama-free. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 49 (4) SOMEONE DESTROYED MY KITCHEN! Wait, heck, sorry. Ahem. Dear Diary, SOMEONE DESTROYED MY KITCHEN!!!!!! We got home, and THE ENTIRE FLOOR IS A WRECK! The buildings are still standing, but someone went wild and just took a sledgehammer to the insides. The kobolds don¡¯t know what happened. The air elementals don¡¯t know what happened. We even asked the yetis if they¡¯d been to our floor, and they said something about how that was against the Admin¡¯s will. So we asked the Admin what happened, and he hasn¡¯t gotten back to us yet. Well, we only asked him like ten minutes ago. We got here pretty late in the day, saw everything destroyed, and ran to ask the kobolds about it. We asked the yetis cuz they were on the way. And we have sending stones to talk to the air elementals, so, yeah. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Thankfully the stairs to our apartments are all kinda¡­ Well, Players don¡¯t see them at all. It¡¯s a specific blind spot, like with the kobold¡¯s town. NPC¡¯s can see them, but get a super bad ¡°don¡¯t go there¡± vibe from them. So our apartments were safe from the ransacking. If anyone had gone to my room and messed with my stuff, I¡¯d be ready to murder them. I think if anyone had messed with Avi¡¯s apartment, he would have become non-pacifist. Mika and Kimi are already about to skin whoever did it alive, I can¡¯t imagine what they¡¯d threaten to do if someone had gone into their rooms. So yeah, tomorrow I¡¯ll spend basically the whole day cleaning up my kitchen. I¡¯ll have to see what¡¯s broken and ask the Admin to fix it. I know he can poof fix a lot of things, but not everything. Like, I¡¯ve got a special spice rack and a pasta maker and a basket specifically for deep-frying vegetables that didn¡¯t come with the kitchen itself. And then when I¡¯m done with my place, I¡¯ll see if Avi and everyone else needs help. Actually, I don¡¯t think Avi will need a lot of help. He hasn¡¯t really personalized the inn. Back in Cycle 1, before we figured things out, Kimi burned her shop down like a dozen times. And the Admin always put it back super easy. So I know if something¡¯s close to how it was in Cycle 1, he can replace it no problem. It¡¯s still upsetting. I mean, destroying a bunch of shops like this is just rude. Whoever did it, I don¡¯t want to be friends with them. Nya. Goodnight, Dungeon.
New covers! Look at them shiny things! LOOK!!! This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Bought and paid for by the beautiful people over on Patreon ^.^ Do I have approval on Vol. 2''s official title? Is it stupid enough? Personally, I think it shows a decent amount of character growth, which is a good thing for Light Novel titles. Cycle 49 (5) Dear Diary, Well, the Admin wrote back. He says he watched the videos (which, there are videos?), and it was the hobgoblins from Floor 92. ¡­The hobgoblins. From the floor above us. The one Staab came from. As far as any of us know, they¡¯ve never left their floor before. Meaning the first time they leave their floor, it¡¯s to destroy stuff. I don¡¯t even know how they got a key! But still! Rude!!! So yeah! Mika, Kimi and the Sams are ready to walk up there and just destroy them. We aren¡¯t normal players. We know they have houses. And with Staab, we know where those houses are. Aya, Lily, Staab and I are ready to murder, but don¡¯t want to completely destroy everything they own. Samantha is a little bit in this group, but wouldn¡¯t say no to putting a hole in a wall. Avi wants to talk it over first, and then if they¡¯re unreasonable do a murder. No one was surprised by him not wanting to fight. This leaves Y. Y¡­ thinks we should leave it up to the Admin. Absolutely everyone was surprised by this. I mean, he¡¯s blown up enough stuff that asking him to blow up a jerk¡¯s house should get an instant yes, right? But he said it¡¯s not worth it, that we can wreck them so why bother trying, and if we attack it¡¯ll just make them retaliate. We don¡¯t want a war, so just let the Admin do whatever. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. I¡­ can appreciate that that¡¯s a very mature and adult view of the matter. But I still want to punch one of them in their stupid face for dumping ketchup in my soda machine. I mean, cleaning magic did not clean it. The Admin had to just get rid of the whole machine and give me a new one! Someone needs to learn that putting ketchup where it does not belong is very rude. Anyways, we argued about it for a little bit, and mostly we decided we¡¯ll have to decide by tomorrow morning. Thing is, we¡¯re stronger than them. As goliaths, with buffs to strength, we¡¯re stronger than them by a lot. One punch from any of us and they¡¯re dead. But, as Y pointed out, next cycle we¡¯ll spend a week or so off this floor. If we make them too mad, they might get mad enough to ignore the ¡°don¡¯t go there¡± feeling and get into our apartments. That would seriously be bad. Mika thinks we should figure something out to scare them more than hurt them, like with the lotus trap we made. The rest of us don¡¯t want to take the time to build something, but the idea is good. I don¡¯t know. As much as I wish milkshakes and cookies could solve everyone¡¯s problems, I know they wouldn¡¯t. And I want to defend what¡¯s mine. Avi and Y are just¡­ very against fighting back. And they have a point. But it wasn¡¯t their soda machine that got filled with ketchup. We might ask the Admin to do something to forbid the hobgoblins from coming back and then attack. As a compromise, for Y. But I¡¯m pretty sure we¡¯ll be attacking tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 49 (6) Dear Diary, A group of kobolds agreed to stay on Floor 93 next cycle until we get here. They¡¯ll all be staying in the inn, but will hang out in the shops. Nat and Gin will be in my diner, Emmy (who won Mika¡¯s blacksmith competition a couple cycles ago) will stay at the smith¡¯s shop, Jon (the drummer) will hang out in Aya¡¯s (surprisingly soundproof) shop, and two kobolds named Pep and Lee who are in Lily¡¯s book club will split their time between the other three buildings. We don¡¯t know if they¡¯re strong enough as a group to beat off a group of hobgoblins, but Aya said people being here should surprise any intruders enough that they might run away. I hope so. Because yeah, we went up and did some damage. We decided to go to the hobgoblins and ask why they¡¯d destroyed our floor. If they apologized, said they were drunk or something, fair enough. We¡¯d just warn them to not do it again. If they didn¡¯t apologize, we¡¯d beat them up. And if they were super rude we¡¯d destroy their houses. So, only six players are allowed to fight at a time. When two or more groups enter a not-safe floor at the same time, there¡¯s a¡­ split. The players only see the people in their party, while the non-players kinda experience everything at once. The Sams say it¡¯s weird but you get used to it. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Anyways, we couldn¡¯t all go up at once, in the same party. Avi and Y didn¡¯t want to go at all. Since it was our floor that got wrecked, the Sams decided to not go until after we came back. So the group that went up was me, Aya, Mika, Kimi, Lily and Staab. The old group. It was kinda nostalgic. We went up, and asked what the heck. The ghosts and hobgoblins were super snarky. They obviously didn¡¯t want to be nice or apologize. Soooooo we tied them up and threw them into lava, then went to their houses and threw most of their stuff into lava, too. Just the stuff that the Admin can replace. Like beds and chairs. We didn¡¯t touch anything they¡¯d obviously spent time and effort making. And then Mika brought out spray paint, and we vandalized the heck out of their buildings. It was fun. I¡¯m pretty sure all the Sams did was go up and punch them to death. But yeah, we made our feelings clear. The Admin said he can¡¯t stop them from coming down next cycle if they have keys, but oh well. If they decide to escalate matters from here on, then we¡¯ll build something like the lotus trap for them. I¡¯m pretty sure they won¡¯t, though. ¡­Avi hasn¡¯t talked to me since we got back. He didn¡¯t come over for dinner, which is the first time, like, ever. I¡¯m¡­ not sure what to do about that. Kimi¡¯s still in the diner, doing something with something, so I guess Y isn¡¯t talking to her, either. On the plus side, Staab made a joke and Lily laughed at it earlier, so, yay? ¡­I think I¡¯m gonna go talk to Kimi. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 49 (7) Dear Diary, Avi and Y are mad at us. Kimi and me. Well, mad is the wrong word. It¡¯s more¡­ disappointed. They think we shouldn¡¯t have gone up, mostly because they told us not to. That did not go over well with Kimi. I get it, but just the way he said it made Kimi super mad. And that started a very not-fun argument. In the diner. With Avi and I sitting there, watching. I hate drama. Y can be scary. Avi and I have decided to just never talk about this ever again. He asked me to not do something, and I did it anyways. I felt like I had to do it, and he thinks it¡¯ll just make things worse. I mean¡­ It¡¯s not like we didn¡¯t give the hobgoblins a chance. We asked them why they did it, we gave them an opening to apologize, and they insulted us. They called us all very rude bad words. Aya asked if they wanted to rephrase their statements, and one guy called her... something very not nice. Which is where the talking ended. So yeah, Kimi and I feel perfectly validated in fighting. The others do, too. And what¡¯s done is done, we can¡¯t go back in time and not beat up the group of jerks. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Anyways. Drama is exhausting. I didn¡¯t get any new ingredients this cycle. Sad. The Floor 2 kobolds are back on Floor 93.5, so I guess that¡¯s going to be a permanent thing. Avi and I made collar necklace things for the dracoraptors, but we didn¡¯t get to put them on. I don¡¯t think going up there is a good idea, since we¡¯d have to go through the hobgoblins to get there. As a goliath I can only teleport about halfway across a floor, so there¡¯s a good chance we might run into someone. I don¡¯t want to talk to the hobgoblins when it¡¯s just Avi and me. Not that I¡¯m afraid or anything. With the racial buff I¡¯m strong enough to kill them in like two punches. But, I don¡¯t know, I don¡¯t want to kill anything in front of Avi. Especially not now. So I guess we¡¯ll have to wait until next cycle to try it. Next cycle we¡¯ll either be a half-dragon or hobgoblin. Avi and I are going to be half-dragons. Those have wings, and can fly. I liked flying around as a fairy, so flying around as a dragon person should be totally epic. I hope we get to play volleyball with the air elementals next cycle. We might have a slight chance at winning! I think everyone but Y wants to be a half-dragon. I mean, dragon. It¡¯s not like being a little kobold, this is waaaay cooler. And at the moment no one in the group really likes hobgoblins. Kimi was going to be a hobgoblin, but if she and Y are still mad at each other when the cycle resets she might go with half-dragon. I know she was only going to be a hobgoblin to be the same race as Y. But a lot can change in a week or so. We¡¯ll see what happens. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 49 (8) Dear Diary, The kobolds are having a poetry contest tomorrow! I¡¯m gonna go because Avi, Mika and Aya are entering, but I¡¯m prepared to be super bored. Poetry was never my thing. Aya had to specifically ask if haikus were allowed, and they are. Mika and Avi write songs, which is (according to Mika) ¡°like poetry, but different¡±. Avi apparently understood that perfectly, given how seriously he nodded when she said it. They spent all day today adjusting their song lyrics to be poetry. I¡­ am going to be so bored tomorrow. But that¡¯s ok! My being there will make Avi happy, and that¡¯s all that matters. It¡¯s been three days since the last time I wrote. The whole hobgoblin thing is moooostly behind us. Avi and I are fine, at least. Kimi and Y are ok, but Y is quieter than usual. He¡¯s still worried about what the hobgoblins will do to retaliate. His worrying has made Staab worried, which made Staab realize he still cares about Lilly. They had a big long conversation, and are now¡­ friends. Just friends. Hopefully that means all the drama is over. There aren¡¯t any dramatic things happening at the moment, at least. With any luck, nothing that involves emotions will happen for the next fifty cycles. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Oh, next cycle we¡¯ve decided to all be the same color! With half-dragons, magic color changes their scale colors, so we¡¯re going to be a color-coordinated pack. But that means we have to pick a color. Obviously everyone voted for their color, and then the Sams all changed their vote to be yellow. I was about to say I wouldn¡¯t mind having lightning magic, when Mika said we should have a marble race to decide. So we get a marble race this cycle!! We decided to have two; one where everyone has just one marble running, then the top five get a second race with four marbles each. We had the first race yesterday. The people moving on (in order) are Kimi, Avi, Staab, me, and Samurai. I think if Samurai (her color is pink) wins, everyone will demand a third race. We can¡¯t agree on what color to be, but we all know what color we want not to be. Staab is brown, which means earth magic. That would be kinda boring but fine. Red fire magic would be fun. I think a group of silver half-dragons would be super pretty, regardless of magic. But obviously I think a pack of emerald green dragons flying through the sky would be best. Oh, Aya said that there are more slimes in the slime maze now. She said they¡¯re smaller and faster, and that the big slimes are more aggressive now. I¡¯m glad we have the shortcut, and don¡¯t have to deal with them any more. I think there were already plenty of slimes down there, but I guess the Admin has to change things around from time to time. I just wish he¡¯d add more dire wolves, not more slimes. More fluffy wolves can only ever be a good thing. More slimes is always bad. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 49 (9) Dear Diary, Kimi won the marble race, so next cycle we¡¯ll all be red half-dragons. That¡¯ll be fun. I¡¯ve always kinda wanted to try fire magic, but not enough to change from green to red. Burning our way through the dungeon will be epic. The players got here early this morning, super early. They must have spent the night in the campsite on the staircase between Floors 92 and 93, which is odd to me. I mean, the camps are comfy enough, but I think the inn is way the heck better. And not just because my boyfriend runs it. But I¡¯m not in charge of them, they can sleep wherever they want. I guess. Anyways, I think they¡¯ll have pushed the button by noon tomorrow. There are six people in their party, so they can reset the cycle all on their own. One of the players wanted to wander around and find the shortcut, but the rest of the group said that was a waste of time. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a waste of time. I mean, it¡¯s one floor to go through instead of seven. It saves so much time! So what if they waste an hour or two looking for it? Besides, it¡¯ll come in handy next cycle. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Oh! The poetry thing! It was super boring. I mean, some poems were interesting. And a couple were funny. But most were the same, slightly pretentious, think-they¡¯re-deep, thesaurus overusing poems. If someone had asked me to vote for my favorite, I would have voted for Mika¡¯s poem. (Sorry, Avi.) She kinda sang hers, and it was about how awesome the dire wolves are. You can¡¯t beat someone singing about floofs. Avi¡¯s poem was about rivers. It was good, I guess. I mean, it was a poem about rivers. All the rhymings rhymed, and the syllables were right? Aya read six haikus. They didn¡¯t rhyme at all, but the syllables were correct and they stayed on theme. People nodded thoughtfully when she was done, so I guess they went over well with the poetry crowd. Gin read a poem. It was called Ode to Potatoes. I probably would have given it second place. (Sorry, Avi!) I think I liked Mika and Gin¡¯s poems because they weren¡¯t trying to use metaphors or anything. Fluffy wolves represented fluffy wolves, and potatoes were potatoes. There¡¯s nothing more real than a potato. If you write a poem about a yellow bird, but the bird is supposed to be something else, aren¡¯t you kinda lying? Seems kinda nefarious to me if you write about waterfalls but they¡¯re secretly something else. You said you wrote about a sidewalk, but now you say it¡¯s really about the looming inevitability of death? I feel betrayed. Anyways, I should just stay away from poetry in case I accidentally offend someone by thinking a geode represents a geode. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (1)
You made it to Cycle 50! Congrats! You have pushed the Reset Button [2] times! This cycle, marble slingshots have been removed and replaced with marble crossbows. Have fun with that. Also, in shops from Floor 48 down, you¡¯ll find Transformation Belts. If you put one of these belts on, you will transform into one of five animals. You will keep all your stats, unless the animal¡¯s stats are higher, in which case you will be given those. Removing the belt will remove the transformation. If anyone dies due to removing a belt at the wrong time, I will laugh. Since you can go through half the dungeon as a literal animal, I am removing the following player races: otterkin, piscine, and sobek. Wolfkin gets to stay only because of the group of players who have been using it since Cycle 2. Don¡¯t say I never take feelings into account when removing things. Good luck out there!
***** Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re all red half-dragons! ¡­Except Y, who is a red hobgoblin. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I liked having wings as a fairy, but this is way cooler. Fairy wings were obviously magical, and worked with magic. Dragon wings are waaaay bigger and more muscular. They¡¯re still kinda magical by default, but it¡¯s less obvious. I think half-dragon is going to be in my top three favorite races when we get done testing them all. Oh! The Admin removed the fish and crocodile races! So that gets rid of the whole ¡°we have to try them even though we don¡¯t really want to¡± thing. The Admin has removed races before, like the vampire race and the blob race. I think there was a¡­ either crab or spider race once. For like two cycles. No one got to our floor who was a giant spider or crab, so I guess it wasn¡¯t all that popular. Anyways, that means after this the only races we have to try are orc and wolfkin. Half-orc is also available, and I think we¡¯re all going to go with that one. ¡­The other half is human. We can¡¯t be a half-orc half-neko, which seems unfair. Although, I guess if someone tried to be a half-orc half-elf, then they¡¯d be starting out with like +10 to all stats. Which would be stupidly OP. Lily and the Sams are kinda mad at Y for being the only hobgoblin. They say it ruins the theme. None of the rest of us really care. Kimi told them they should have thought of that before saying we all could choose either hobgoblin or half-dragon. So yeah, Kimi and Y are back on good terms. That¡¯s nice. The Admin also removed the otterkin race, which is sad. That one was fun. But! He added in the shape-changing things that I suggested a couple cycles ago! It¡¯s a belt, not a necklace, and I don¡¯t know what animals we can turn into, but it¡¯s there! I haven¡¯t told anyone that it was my idea, but if one of the animals available is a dracoraptor, I¡¯ll have to tell Avi. It¡¯ll be a couple days before we get to Floor 48, where they start selling them, and the wait might kill me. So if this is my last diary entry, let it be known that I died from impatience. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (2) Emmy frowned in concentration, curling the blade of a knife into a tight spiral. The metal wasn¡¯t quite hot enough, but she didn¡¯t want it to melt into itself as it cooled. As soon as she finished, she grabbed snips and cut slits every few centimeters. By that time the metal really was too cold, so she put it back into the forge. Two seconds later she pulled it out and set it on the anvil. She needed a water break. As she walked into the shop proper, someone yelled. Emmy paused, looking towards the plaza. Pep ran out of the inn, followed by a group of laughing hobgoblins. One threw an ax, which hit her square in the back. She collapsed, yelling. The group ran up, and one decapitated her. Pep vanished. Emmy stared, fur standing on end. The hobgoblins looked around, saw her, and grinned. One raised his ax, but another pushed his arm down. ¡°No, she¡¯s hot, don¡¯t kill her yet,¡± he said. Emmy ran inside. She hid under the counter, sending three empty messages to Calvin in quick succession. As the shop door opened, she prepared a fireball. ¡°Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,¡± one said, his voice taunting. Another snickered. ¡°Nah, get to the point. Here, pussy, pussy, pussy¡­¡± Emmy held her breath, heart racing as they laughed. A hobgoblin¡¯s face looked over the counter and grinned. She hit him with the fireball. He cursed, retreating. Three hobgoblins came running around the counter, eyes hungry. Emmy screamed as two grabbed her arms and one her ankles. And then they turned into goldfish. Normal, three-inch-long goldfish. Emmy scrambled back into a corner as they flopped around for a bit, then twitched and died. The goldfish vanished, leaving a square of salmon as loot. Calvin appeared the instant they were gone. He dropped to his knees next to Emmy and wrapped his arms around her. ¡°Are you ok?¡± he asked. ¡°Did they hurt you?¡± Emmy buried her face in his chest, still shaking. ¡°No.¡± He held her for a few seconds before moving back to look her in the eye. ¡°No to which question?¡± ¡°Both?¡± He relaxed slightly, then pulled her in to hold her tighter. He whispered, telling her she was safe, that he¡¯d protect her. Eventually she relaxed, and he let her move away from him. Emmy looked at the pieces of salmon on the floor. ¡°You turned them into goldfish?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he said, perfectly serious. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Why? I mean, why not just get rid of them?¡± Calvin got the look on his face that he always had when he wasn¡¯t supposed to tell her something. ¡°Death isn¡¯t real here. Punishments need to be¡­ mental.¡± Emmy watched him. ¡°Have you turned other people into goldfish?¡± ¡°I¡­ give them a chance to explain,¡± he said. ¡°Some people shouldn¡¯t be allowed in a body that can hurt others.¡± She wasn¡¯t sure how to reply to that, so she just leaned against him again. He tensed as the door creaked open. ¡°Emmy?¡± Gin called. ¡°Are you here? Are you all right?¡± Emmy gave Calvin a quick kiss on the cheek before climbing to her feet. She smiled at Gin. ¡°I¡¯m here, I¡¯m fine,¡± she said. ¡°Are you ok?¡± ¡°Just worried about you,¡± Gin said. ¡°Did you kill the hobgoblins? They got Pep and Lee, and destroyed the inn.¡± ¡°Fireballs,¡± Emmy said, summoning one to her palm. ¡°I hid back there and sniped them.¡± Gin nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll let Nat know, in case they come back. Do you want to come to the diner? There¡¯s safety in numbers.¡± ¡°No, thank you, I¡¯ll stay here for a bit,¡± Emmy said, dismissing the fireball. Gin nodded again, and left with a word of good-bye. Calvin got to his feet after she closed the door. ¡°In case you were worried, they aren¡¯t coming back.¡± Emmy put her hands on his chest. ¡°No, I know you wouldn¡¯t let them.¡± ¡°Never.¡± He kissed her. ***** Jaab swam around the fish tank, trying to find a place to hide. People surrounded the tank, jeering and constantly tapping the glass with their fingernails. Suddenly he was ripped out of the water. He landed on a smooth grey floor in an endless, empty space, next to three other goldfish. He gasped, cold air raking over sensitive gills. As death drew closer, he felt his body change. He became a hobgoblin again, next to three other hobgoblins. Jaab knelt on the floor, still gasping. ¡°You have one chance to convince me you regret your actions.¡± Jaab looked up. A few feet away stood a human with gold eyes and hair. The man didn¡¯t look particularly imposing, but the anger on his face worried Jaab. Kiick laughed shortly. ¡°I regret getting caught.¡± The human flicked his hand, and Kiick turned back into a goldfish. He twitched for a few seconds, then died. His body didn¡¯t vanish. Jaab stared at the dead fish, his frantic mind realizing what was going on. The human was The Admin. They¡¯d pissed off the Admin himself. And not just enough to get an email saying ¡°don¡¯t do it again¡±, no, pissed off enough to get a face-to-face meeting. This was bad. This was very bad. To his right, Puunch growled. ¡°What, those catgirls had it coming. If they think-¡° He was turned into a goldfish. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Jaab said, hunching down to be as small as possible. ¡°I¡¯ll never leave my floor again!¡± The Admin glared at him. ¡°What are you sorry for?¡± On his left, Sliice spoke up. ¡°I¡¯m sorry we left our floor and- and scared that cat!¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± Jaab agreed. ¡°We were just jealous of Staab gettin¡¯ all that- But we won¡¯t be any more!¡± ¡°Nope!¡± The Admin was silent for a few seconds, glaring down at them. Finally he waved his hand, and the dead goldfish vanished. Jaab knew he¡¯d never see Puunch or Kiick again. ¡°I don¡¯t care if you leave your floor or not,¡± the Admin snarled. ¡°But if you ever touch a woman without her consent again, you will instantly regret it. Have I made myself clear?¡± ¡°Yes, sir.¡± ¡°Cristal, sir.¡± The Admin turned away, waving his hand dismissively. There was a brief darkness, and Jaab found himself back in his hut on Floor 92. He collapsed, curling into fetal position. He stayed there for a long, long time. Cycle 50 (3) Dear Diary, When we got to Floor 7, Avi and I decided to kidnap three wolves. We knew they were low-level and wouldn¡¯t last long, but having fluffy wolf pets was worth it. They got eaten by mimics on Floor 25. Then we discussed kidnapping the wolves that are on Floor 32, but everyone told us we should just stop kidnapping feral animals. Mika reminded us that there are pets in the shops, and if we want a pet so bad we should, like, buy one. Like normal people. And stop trying to make friends with things that want to eat us. Avi and I agreed that was crazy talk. But we conceded to not kidnap any more animals this cycle. We won¡¯t get any shop pets, either. If we could do something insane, like buy 500 cats, then maybe we¡¯d do it. Just to smile and tell Mika we followed her advice. But no, there¡¯s a limit of one pet per player. Oh, the hobgoblins went to our floor. They tore up the inn, and killed Lily¡¯s friends, then Emmy killed them before they could do any more damage. Y¡¯s reaction was basically ¡°I told you so¡±, and he thinks they¡¯ll try again tomorrow. Staab, on the other hand, thinks there¡¯s more to the story. He says that there¡¯s no way one kobold could kill four hobgoblins, since hobgoblins are slightly higher level than kobolds. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Aya reminded him that whenever Emmy is on Floor 93, she becomes a catgirl, so she¡¯s not just a kobold. And Lily said she¡¯s one of the people who learned magic, so she probably hit them with an attack spell or two that they weren¡¯t expecting. Either way, I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be messing with Emmy again. They might try destroying all the other shops, but not the blacksmith¡¯s shop. Which means my diner has a high chance of being destroyed this week. I just hope they don¡¯t put ketchup in anything. Nat and Gin would be nice and clean it up, but I don¡¯t want them to have to do that. Anyways, being a half-dragon is super fun! Flying is 10 out of 10 waaaay better than walking. And being able to just open my mouth and incinerate whatever¡¯s in front of me is epic. Our only regret is that marshmallows aren¡¯t a thing. Being able to make smores with our fire breath would be so much fun. ¡­Actually, wait a minute¡­ MARSHMALLOWS ARE A THING HERE!!! There¡¯s an option for hot chocolate to come with or without marshmallows! So, yes, they¡¯re not exactly the best marshmallows, but they exist! Ok, tomorrow night I¡¯m gonna have to sift through a bunch of hot chocolate mix for marshmallows. Wait, no, that¡¯s a lie. We¡¯ll be on Floor 48 by tomorrow night. And Floor 48 is where the shape-changing belts are! I¡¯ll probably be too busy running around as some animal to fiddle with hot chocolate. Maybe I¡¯ll give a bunch of hot chocolate to Lily for her to sort through. She¡¯s not really a ¡°turn into animal¡± type of person. I can¡¯t wait to get there¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (4) Dear Diary, There¡¯s a belt that lets you turn into a dracoraptor!!! Avi was ecstatic. His lifelong dream of turning into a bipedal, feathered dinosaur has finally come true. It was every bit as magical as he¡¯d imagined it would be. Have I ever mentioned that my boyfriend is the cutest thing ever? Because he¡¯s the cutest thing ever. Aside from dracoraptors, there are belts that let you turn into a wolf (regular wolf, not dire wolf), cheetah, blacktip reef shark, and harpy eagle. I really want to try out the shark belt. We can fly this cycle, so only Mika bought the harpy eagle belts, but everyone got all the other belts. Cheetahs are heat-resistant, while wolves are cold-resistant. I don¡¯t know why, but I guess the Admin had to differentiate them in some way other than ¡°big cat¡± and ¡°big doggo¡±. We¡¯ve spent almost half the dungeon flying around as a pack of half-dragons, so now we¡¯ll be running around as a pack of wolves. We¡¯ll keep the wolf belts on until Floor 60 (except on water floors, where we¡¯ll switch to sharks), then from Floor 60 to 75 we¡¯ll wear the cheetah belts, then from Floor 75 to 93 we¡¯ll wear the raptor belts. Just to try them all. We have to try them all. That¡¯s like, a law or something at this point. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Next cycle we¡¯ll try out the eagle belts for a couple floors. We can¡¯t really talk while wearing the belts. Animal vocal cords aren¡¯t meant for human noises. Thankfully, this is not a problem for¡­ well, everyone who isn¡¯t Lily. Somehow, I think we¡¯ll all do pretty good at communicating with animal noises. The Sams used to be a hive mind, and can hold entire conversations through eyebrow wiggles. I¡¯ve seen them. Aya doesn¡¯t talk all that much, and can communicate just fine through facial expressions. She¡¯ll be good. Mika is absolutely going to take this as a challenge, and throw her entire heart and soul into perfecting animal sounds and body language. Kimi and Y¡­ Honestly, I¡¯d be surprised if they haven¡¯t already perfected animal sounds and body language in private. Avi and I just know how animals act from having forcibly befriended a ton of them. True, we haven¡¯t befriended any cheetahs, but how different are cheetahs from a housecat? And we know housecats. Staab will roll with it. But Lily likes being kinda elegant and formal about things. There¡¯s nothing elegant or formal about turning into a wolf and then trying to communicate that someone needs to open the door for you. That¡¯s just kinda silly. Still, she agreed to wear the belts without hesitation or complaint, which surprised me. Oh! Mika tried wearing all five belts at once, and she exploded. So we wrote the Admin and he says he¡¯ll have fixed that bug by tomorrow morning. We still won¡¯t try putting on more than one at a time, though. But hey, now she knows what exploding feels like! She¡¯s been wondering that ever since we first talked to the guy on Floor 69 who said it wasn¡¯t all that bad. She says him being made out of porcelain probably makes it feel different. Anyways, tomorrow is going to be fun. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (5) Dear Diary, Spending all day as a wolf: Cons - being a quadruped means your ¡°hands¡± are constantly touching dirt, which feels wrong. Pros - everything else. It¡¯s so much fun!!! I think it wouldn¡¯t be as fun if I were the only one doing it. But being in a party where everyone is a wolf, and everyone is loving it, just makes it that much better. Oh yeah, this cycle I¡¯m in a party with Avi, Mika and the Sams. It¡¯s the first time Aya hasn¡¯t been with them. They haven¡¯t argued or anything, she just decided to team up with Lily this cycle. Staab is with Kimi and Y. We decided to all wait for each other between every floor, so we¡¯re basically all together. Anyways, running around as a pack of wolves is somehow relaxing. It just feels right. I¡¯m sure if we spent a whole cycle as wolves I¡¯d get tired of it, but right now it¡¯s epic. I think when we go down to Floor 97 for the first time this cycle we¡¯ll go down as wolves. Just to surprise the kobolds. They might be kinda unsure about us if we showed up as cheetahs, and they might totally freak out if we went down as raptors, but the kobolds like wolves. They¡¯ll probably just pet us and give us meatballs. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Which, yes, I am willing to be pampered in wolf form by a bunch of kobolds. That is not a thing I would complain about at all. The only thing that makes me sad is color. Since we¡¯re all red this cycle, our fur is kinda red. I¡¯m used to us having variety. Sure, it¡¯s probably more aesthetically pleasing that we¡¯re a pack of matching wolves, but I¡¯m used to us being all the colors. It would just be a tiny bit more fun if we were running around as a pack of rainbow wolves. Besides, it probably helps tell us apart when we¡¯re different colors. I¡¯m sure some of the people we talk to appreciate that. Oh, I¡¯m not a wolf right now. I took the belt off when we decided to stop for the night. So I¡¯m back to being a half-dragon. Lily and I went through a bunch of hot chocolate mix and pulled out all the marshmallows, so we had smores tonight! Making s¡¯mores was super fun. Lily had never had them before. Avi and Y had only had them once. I thought smores were a universal thing that every kid has, but apparently not. Lily said it¡¯s a white people thing. Then Aya said it was more of an American thing, and Staab said it was just a camping thing. Instead of debating the ethnic origin of smores we agreed to just say they were delicious and eat more of them. That made everyone happy. Anyways, we have a full day of running around on four paws tomorrow, and I might never feel like my hands are clean again when this is done. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (6) Dear Diary, We got to Floor 60 yesterday, so today we set out through the dungeon as cheetahs. Cheetahs are slightly bigger than wolves, and are more flexible. Honestly it¡¯s kinda easier to move as a cheetah than a wolf. It¡¯s waaay easier to jump and climb on things. It¡¯s not quite as ¡°right¡± feeling to be a pack of cheetahs as it was to be a pack of wolves. It kinda feels like we should be solo, or at most in pairs. I think if I¡¯m ever just in a team with Avi again we might be cheetahs. Or if I ever go solo, becoming a cheetah would be fun. Wait, no, if I¡¯m ever just with Avi he¡¯ll insist we spend the whole cycle as raptors. He¡¯s enjoying being a cheetah, but honestly he¡¯s only wearing that belt instead of the raptor belt to be polite. The magic color on cheetahs changes the spot color. Since cheetahs are gold/yellow, I kinda wonder what it would look like if someone with yellow magic became one. Would the spots be the same color as the rest of the fur, or would they just be a completely yellow cheetah? Not that I¡¯m going to try. Red spots look cool, and next cycle I¡¯ll be back to green, so I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll ever find out. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Oh, Samantha got a marble crossbow, and it looks super fun. It kinda feels like sacrilege to use a marble as a weapon instead of racing it, but if we come across another marble crossbow I might have to try it. ¡­She hasn¡¯t been using it while being a cheetah. She¡¯s just been playing with it in the camps while we wait for everyone else. Magic still works while we¡¯re wolves and cheetahs, which is good. We might have had to go back to being half-dragons if it didn¡¯t. But weapons don¡¯t really work. I mean, most weapons are designed to be held in a hand that has an opposable thumb. Samurai tried holding a katana in her mouth, and¡­ yeah, no, that totally didn¡¯t work. At all. Maybe with years of practice she might be able to use it, but when she first tried it was more like a puppy bouncing around with a sharp stick than a warrior with a deadly weapon. Anyways, we haven¡¯t heard anything about the hobgoblins lately. I guess they think they did enough damage? We¡¯ll see what they do when we go through their floor, if they try any tricks or anything. Nat and Gin say they¡¯ve been working with Emmy to make more pasta makers (with more shapes), and a couple other kitchen things. Like a potato ricer and a dehydrator. For the dehydrator I reminded them that there¡¯s a spell that can take the water out of pretty much anything. Gin says that¡¯s fine, but with a dehydrator you can add spices and salt to the stuff. Which, yeah, spices and salt are always a plus. Anyways, when we get to the catgirl floor tomorrow I¡¯m gonna make a bunch of meatballs just so we can see how they taste as wolves. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (7) Dear Diary, Back home! I do like being home. So, being different animals does affect taste buds. Meatballs are delicious as wolves, but they aren¡¯t all that exciting as cheetahs. I¡¯ll have to test a couple things as a cheetah to see what the best food for them is. Strangely, I don¡¯t think blackberry tastes all that much better as a dracoraptor. I don¡¯t know why the raptors like it so much. Oh! The dracoraptors did not like us coming to their floor as raptors. They attacked us more aggressively than ever before, and almost killed the whole party. Only Samurai managed to run back to the entrance in time. She recalled us, and we took the belts off for that floor. The raptors still acted like they wanted to attack us, but they didn¡¯t. We told everyone else to not go through as a raptor. Other than that, being a raptor has been super fun! We haven¡¯t gone down to the kobolds yet, and I can¡¯t wait to see how they react to us being wolves. I bet a bunch of them will want to buy belts. ¡­I hope the dire wolves are ok with it, and don¡¯t react like the raptors did¡­ Nat and Gin were pretty surprised to see us show up as raptors. At first they thought we were real raptors, and ran away. So yeah, showing up on Floor 97 as raptors is a bad idea. It would be funny, but it would also probably get us killed instantly. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. They say the hobgoblins haven¡¯t tried to come down since they attacked that one time. When we went through the floor, all we saw were the ghosts. They don¡¯t seem like the kind of people who hide, but I don¡¯t know why they¡¯d try to avoid us. Unless they just think raptors are super scary. Which, to be fair, they are. I can¡¯t blame them for hiding from a pack of raptors. Y still thinks they¡¯re going to come down and attack again. If they do, we¡¯ll just attack back. I¡¯m not worried about it. Anyways, today we all got the eagle belts and jumped off the walkway to glide down. Yeah, we have wings as half-dragons, but those are¡­ They¡¯re like a weird third set of limbs. Flying with wings that are just arms is different. It¡¯s more relaxing somehow. I guess it takes less mental energy? Oh yeah! Swimming as a shark is fun. It took a little bit to get used to, but it almost feels like dancing. It¡¯s basically just swinging your hips and feet back and forth. Figuring out how to maneuver instead of just going in a straight line was hard, too. Fins are weird. Changing from an air-breathing creature to a water-breathing creature and back is slightly scary, though. There¡¯s a couple seconds both ways where breathing is just impossible. Not because there¡¯s air or water where it shouldn¡¯t be, just because of instincts. I mean, I¡¯ve breathed air my whole life. Suddenly needing to breathe water goes against everything I¡¯ve ever known. And then after I¡¯ve gotten used to breathing water, needing to breathe air again feels wrong. Thankfully breathing is a thing we do constantly, and mostly without thinking about it, so the ¡°aaaaah¡± feeling doesn¡¯t stick around long. ¡­Avi says I¡¯ve written enough for one night. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (8) Dear Diary, Yep, the kobolds were excited to learn shape-changing belts are a thing. A lot of them got eagle belts, which I was surprised about. I mean, Kimi sold like a hundred and fifty wolf belts, so yeah those were the favorite, but she also sold close to seventy eagle belts. I think twenty people got shark belts and went for a swim; I hope they had fun. I don¡¯t know how many people got cheetah belts, but I think it was less than the number that got eagle belts. And Kimi only sold like three raptor belts. The kobolds are already planning a sled racing contest , and are trying to figure out how to test who¡¯s the best at running. They want it to be a multi-hour race, which sounds equally fun and exhausting. At first the plan was to race on Floor 99 like always, but asking the yetis permission to run around for hours and hours wasn¡¯t something anyone wanted to do. So instead we decided to race on Floor 93.5. Then we had to decide: should the sleds be wheeled, or should we just freeze the floor? I think they decided to freeze the floor. Lily says if she teaches all of them a snow spell, two hundred kobolds casting at once should be enough to turn the floor to ice. ¡­We should probably write the Admin and say we¡¯re about to freeze his secret floor. That seems like the kind of thing he would notice and get annoyed by. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Oh! Avi and I finally went up and tried to give the dracoraptors necklaces! I don¡¯t know how, but they absolutely know the difference between something we made, something we bought, and something we duplicated. Watching them fight over the necklace we made while acting like the necklace we duplicated (so, literally exactly the same) was complete garbage was kinda funny. When we got home, we put on the raptor belts and tried to figure out what the difference was. The only thing we can guess is that they do smell slightly different. Not a lot different, just a teeny tiny bit. Maybe we should try soaking them in blackberry jam overnight, then see if they can tell the difference? Unless there¡¯s just some kind of magical aura they can see? Then we¡¯d need to¡­ I don¡¯t know, paint them? So yeah, the dracoraptors remain a mystery. When we went up there, we kinda expected the hobgoblins to attack us, but they didn¡¯t. We didn¡¯t see them at all, just the ghosts. I think if the hobgoblins were going to attack us, they would have. I mean, Avi and I are far from intimidating. We¡¯re probably the two least scary-looking in the group. But nope, not even a glimpse. I don¡¯t think we have to worry about them. Oh! Dracoraptor arms have long feathers. We know they aren¡¯t long enough to fly with, or else the raptors would have absolutely ambushed us from above by now. But! Avi figured out they¡¯re good for gliding. It¡¯s possible to jump off the walkway and glide softly down. We don¡¯t have a lot of control, and flying as an eagle is better, but it¡¯s still fun. I¡¯m gonna go write that letter to the Admin before I forget. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (9) Dear Diary, So, apparently like thirty people had the same thought I did, and we all messaged the Admin asking/telling him about the whole ¡°cover the secret floor in snow¡± plan. He sent a reply to all of us at once saying please don¡¯t. Instead, he made it a snow floor for us! So we can have sled races without talking to the yetis or breaking anything! Woo! He also gave the kobolds who live there a house. Before, all they had was a camp with tents. They¡¯re happy about that, since it kinda means they¡¯re there to stay, and they like being there. But¡­ the house he gave them is a duplicate of our house. It has the same layout and brick pattern and everything. The kobolds who built the house are proud, and they should be. I mean, they did such a good job building something that the Admin noticed and copied it! Nice! The thing is, it appeared super fast after we messaged him about making a snow floor. So he already knew we had a house and what it looked like. I guess it kinda¡­ creeps me out a little? Like, I know it¡¯s his job to watch players and take care of the dungeon, but before we became players I thought he only paid attention to us when we messed something up. And I know he used to read my diary. So how much did he watch us? If he knew we had a house and that it¡¯s perfect for what he needed, what else does he know? The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. We haven¡¯t really used the house since becoming players, so he had to have known from before. He knew we stayed with the kobolds a lot, but never mentioned us having a house. I don¡¯t know, I¡¯m probably overthinking it. Anyways, the kobolds are super excited for the race tomorrow. They¡¯re going to throw a party, and asked if we could make wolf themed food. Gin would have done it, but Nat said no. She said she doesn¡¯t do ¡°themed¡± food. If someone wants fancy food, fast food, Italian food, whatever, sure. But a ¡°theme¡± was just stupid and she wouldn¡¯t do it. Which I understand. There¡¯s such a thing as professional pride. But on the other hand, it sounds fun and I probably would have done it. Instead, Gin knows a couple recipes for drinks and candy that give people energy, so we¡¯ve made a bunch of those. When she first said it we were all slightly concerned, but there aren¡¯t any hard drugs here so it couldn¡¯t have been too bad. One of the candy recipes is basically just chocolate frosting, sugar and espresso, so maybe we should have been concerned. But at least the runners will all be very energized. Oh, the band will be a running team, so we¡¯re all rooting for them. Except Y, who¡¯s going to be rooting for his friends. I never really thought about it, but he did have friends before we showed up. Not like super duper ultra close friends, but there was a group he hung out with. We kinda stole him from the kobolds when we became players. Oh well, he doesn¡¯t seem to mind much. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 50 (10) Dear Diary, The race was amazing! ¡­It was two days ago, but whatever. The kobolds put on wolf belts, then got into their sled harnesses and ran. They ran around, and around, and around, and it took like three hours for them to do all the laps they wanted to do. They were super tired by the end, but I know everyone had a blast. They¡¯re already talking about when to do the next one. I think they want to do it while we¡¯re away, which would make me sad, but not enough to tell them to wait. The band came in fourth out of ten teams. So no medal, but they did good. If it were a marble race, I¡¯d be happy with getting fourth. Gin¡¯s energy drinks and candies were huge hits. No one died immediately after eating, which is always a plus. She said no one has ever died immediately after eating any of her food, and that it usually takes a year or two for diabetes and heart disease to kick in. Which, yeah, that¡¯s about what I expected. The winning team was a group who always joins the running races. I think all kobolds have joined at least one¡­ I guess it¡¯s a footrace? But not everyone raced all the time. There was one core group that raced in every single race, and this team was them. They¡¯re super happy they won. I think it¡¯s the same as me and Nat winning a cooking competition. They like running, and they do it a lot, but this is proof they know how to run. ¡­Which doesn¡¯t sound all that impressive until you remember that this race was the first one where everyone had four legs. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Anyways, the night after the race (while we were partying) we got a call from the air elementals who said players were on their floor. We panicked, got everything cleaned up, got back to our floors, aaaand then just sat there for a full day. We spent all day yesterday in the half-bored, half-stressed ¡°any minute now¡± state, and the players never came! They showed up this morning! Which I think was very rude. I mean, I know they didn¡¯t know we were waiting, but they still should have hurried to get here before dark. They chose to eat random campfire food and stay in cabins instead of coming here and eating my food and staying at the inn. Rude. I bet if they¡¯d gotten any food here they would have ordered strawberry milkshakes. Oh, it wasn¡¯t the speedrunners or Ox¡¯s group, it was a pair of fairies who both had black magic, so we think they might have focused all their attention on leveling up teleport. Or invisibility. Or both. Which isn¡¯t a bad idea. I mean, if you aren¡¯t focused on killing everything that moves, you can still level up magic pretty easy. Sure, you¡¯d have to fight a couple things early on, and slimes would have to be fought no matter what, but with just invisibility and teleport you can avoid like 80% of the enemies in the dungeon. When the cycle resets I¡¯ve been putting my free +1 into jumping, maybe I should switch to putting it in invisibility. Jumping is fun but it isn¡¯t super helpful with lvl 100 teleport. Yeah, when the cycle resets I¡¯ll level up invisibility. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! I¡¯m a half-orc! I kinda don¡¯t like it! It¡­ I mean, it¡¯s fine. It¡¯s similar to being a goliath, but with hair and the tattoos are swirls instead of lines. Being big isn¡¯t my favorite thing, and a debuff to magic kinda sucks. But other than that it¡¯s not really all that bad. There are worse races. It¡¯s just, orcs have these tusks like chonky reverse vampire fangs, and they¡­ Well, I wouldn¡¯t have cared nine cycles ago, but they make kissing difficult. And there¡¯s no real¡­ alternative. Like, when we were half-dragons, kissing didn¡¯t work, but biting sure did. It¡¯s like there was this automatic instinct that kicked in and told us what we were doing wrong. But with orcs there¡¯s no ¡°do this instead¡± instinct. It¡¯s a weird thing to complain about, I know, but it just bothers me. Avi and I are our own team this cycle. When we meet everyone on Floor 14 I¡¯ll have to ask Kimi if they¡¯ve found a workaround. If anyone could figure it out, it¡¯s her. Anyways, we decided to not kidnap any wolves this cycle. We¡¯re going back to kidnapping velociraptors. Everyone¡¯s gonna be disappointed, I know, but they can go kidnap their own pets if they¡¯re so upset about it. With enough feeding and friendly words, anyone can adopt any pet. And we have a stat for wolf taming that we¡¯re all pretty high in, so kidnapping a wolf off a lower floor should be fairly easy. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Oh, so, this cycle we all separated into pairs. Aya¡¯s going solo. Staab is with Samantha. Lilly is going insane. She hates it so much. I don¡¯t know what she plans on doing, or if there even is anything she can do, but she is maaaaaaad. She¡¯s with Mika this cycle. I kinda feel sorry for Mika. So yeah, that¡¯s a thing. Usually I hate drama, but this has crossed the line into being slightly funny. Mostly because it has nothing to do with me, and Avi and I can safely gossip about it without her knowing. Avi thinks Lily might resort to charm magic to get Staab back. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d go that far, mostly because it would make everyone upset. Yeah, Lily can be slightly manipulative when she wants something, but she isn¡¯t stupid. Samurai has charm magic. Mostly she got it cuz it comes with pink hair, but she does use it on occasion. She says simple commands like ¡°stop¡± and ¡°stay¡± work on not-people monsters, so she uses it on spiders and mimics a lot. And since she uses it and levels it up, if Lily tried to do something to Samantha, Samurai would be able to command her to do basically anything she wanted. I don¡¯t know if I could ever use charm magic. There¡¯s just something about it that feels¡­ gross. Oily. Like, when you touch something and you expect it to feel one way, but it¡¯s slightly sticky and leaves something on your hand. If you¡¯re expecting it, it¡¯s fine, and I guess you¡¯d get used to it, but yeah. I don¡¯t like it. So I won¡¯t use it! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (2) The Floor 2 kobolds felt a familiar pulse of magic, and found themselves in their house on Floor 93.5. It was nearing dusk, so some stayed in their bedrooms as others went outside to cook on the campfire. The next morning they looked out their windows and saw the big empty area was no longer completely empty. A grassy park with huge oak trees filled about a third of the area, but the other two-thirds was covered in purple asphalt. In some areas the asphalt was more blue, and in others it was closer to red, but that didn¡¯t seem important. They spent an hour or so wandering around this new area, wondering what the Admin was going to do with a purple parking lot. ***** Dear Diary, We¡¯re on Floor 48! That means we get transformation belts! Avi and I only got raptor belts, because we don¡¯t really need anything else. If it were up to me alone, I¡¯d probably get a cheetah belt, too. But Avi has been obsessed with dinosaurs since day 1, so I won¡¯t make him be anything else for a couple cycles. I¡¯m just glad it¡¯s a bipedal dinosaur, and not a stegosaurus or something. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Lex and Tim (oh, yeah, we kidnapped them again), kinda freaked out when we first put the belts on. They remember the real dracoraptors being aggressive and not-nice to them, and thought we would attack them, too. We didn¡¯t, obviously, and spent a couple minutes taking the belts off and putting them on again, just to show that we were us. I haven¡¯t written in a couple days, mostly cuz nothing much has happened. It¡¯s the same ol¡¯ dungeon, nothing new. Well, one floor that was just a forest changed to a winter forest, and another floor that was a desert now has a bazillion flowers covering the sand. But that¡¯s it. All the people are the same, and people are the interesting part. The flowers were pretty, though. Oh! We got lost in a slime maze, and found a loot box! This one had magic clothes in it, so I got a magic cape! It¡­ it¡¯s green. Because I still use green magic. But the edges have silver embroidery on them, so at least there¡¯s that. It gives a slight resistance to slashing and piercing damage, and immunity to acid! It¡¯s got a hood and two pockets. I might never take it off. Avi got a belt that can make him invisible three times a day for five minutes. It works with the shape-changing belt on, so he can become a Super Stealth Raptor if he wants. If we ever decide to play hide-n-seek, he¡¯ll win for sure. I wonder if loot boxes give the same loot every cycle. Probably not. As much as I like my new cape, it¡¯s not worth it to keep instead of my bonk stick. And we only get to keep one armor item when the cycle resets. My stick gives too high of a magic buff. I may not be the best, most number-minded player, but I know my stick is too good to give up. Besides, I like my bonk stick. I¡¯ve had it for a while now, I¡¯m attached. Plus it drives everyone insane when they learn it¡¯s classified as armor instead of as a weapon. I guess I¡¯ll just enjoy my cape while I have it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (3) Dear Diary, Yeah, not much new happened between floors 48 and 93. We¡¯re back home now! The dracoraptors did not like us showing up as raptors. They kinda took it as a personal insult. So yeah, not doing that again. Last cycle we were with other people, and Avi thought they might have attacked us because of them, but nope. They just don¡¯t like other raptors. Yet. We¡¯re gonna work on it. Lex and Tim, very sadly, died. Well, we died, too, but we respawned on Floor 84, not Floor 17. It¡¯s kinda funny, in a way, how much Avi loves the dracoraptors. It¡¯s kinda like when someone has a cat or chihuahua that obviously hates them, but they just totally can¡¯t see it. Except these are waaay bigger than a cat. And at least Avi agrees the dracoraptors are dangerous. Anyways, we got home and found all the kobolds having a fair-type thing on the secret floor! The floor has changed from just being grass to having like half of it covered in pavement, then a quarter is grass and trees, and the last quarter is the maze where the Floor 2 kobolds live. The kobolds built a bunch of stalls on the pavement and had a fair there. Gin had a deep-fryer and was just frying everything. Nat actually wasn¡¯t cooking, she was selling little hat things she¡¯d knitted. I knew she could knit, she¡¯s made a bunch of potholders and stuff, but I¡¯ve never seen these before. They¡¯re super cute! I got one, of course. It doesn¡¯t match my cape, so I won¡¯t wear it, but I can use it as decoration. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The kobolds asked the yetis for permission to hold a wolf team race on their floor, since they don¡¯t really want to ask the Admin to put snow on the secret floor again. Once was fine, but he¡¯s clearly doing something, and we don¡¯t want to mess it up. The yetis talked about it, and voted, and decided that if the kobold¡¯s strongest fighter could beat their strongest fighter in a battle to the death, the kobolds could do whatever they wanted on Floor 98. The kobolds, being in a group of 200 and two floors above the yetis, are all weaker than the yetis. Everyone knows this. The yetis knew they could beat any kobold. But. But. The yetis didn¡¯t know Bonecrusher the Black still has a couple ¡°turn-into-neko¡± potions. Lewis the Dragon is almost as strong as all his kobolds combined. Yeah, it didn¡¯t end well for the yeti who had to fight. Apparently Lewis won by just flicking him with a finger. The yetis were super mad, but there isn¡¯t much they can do. I mean, they did say they wanted the strongest fighter, and I don¡¯t think anyone in the whole dungeon is as strong as Lewis. Maybe the dragon on Floor 100. Actually, I¡¯ve never fought her. Either we¡¯ve made it to the button without waking her up, or she¡¯s killed us instantly. I kinda wonder how strong she is. ¡­I¡¯ll go ask Mika and Kimi if they want to find out! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (4) Dear Diary, Dearest Diary, Dear, Darling Diary, Doodley Doppleganger Diary, Docile Documenting Diary, Diamond Diaphramed Diary, ¡­Did I spell all those correctly? ¡­Nope. Why is there a G in diaphragm? I mean, I can understand the E in doppel coming before the L, but since when does English have a silent G? Where did that come from? Aaaaaanyways. Avi made a bunch of cocktails and mixed drink thingies today. Just trying to experiment with all the stuff I have. He made some pretty good things! I think we managed to finish off like three bottles of tequila, two of vodka, and one of rum. ¡°We¡± being everyone on the floor. Not just me and Avi. Pretty sure I¡¯d be dead if I had all that alcohol by myself. That was a couple hours ago, and I think it¡¯s kiiinda worn off by now? It¡¯s three in the morning, I fell asleep at like eight and woke up a while back. A lot of the drinks were full of sugar, I think I had too much sugar. So yeah, I¡¯m super awake now! Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. <><><><><><><><><><><> [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] I¡¯m bored. Maybe I should try finding a new hobby, like knitting. But that sounds boring. I¡¯ve already tried drawing and music, and those don¡¯t work. For me. Maybe I should try poetry, even if I don¡¯t understand it. Nah. Maybe I should try something like¡­ I should learn how to swim. Like, properly. As a catgirl, not as a shark or otter or whatever. I mean, it¡¯s easy to say ¡°when I put on this belt that turns me into a shark I can swim!¡± but without the belt I¡¯d drown. Drowning is bad. I don¡¯t want to drown. I wonder if I could reduce espresso down into something like a 12-hour energy shot thing. Those are just straight chemicals anyways, so if I could get the caffeine out of the espresso that¡¯d work. I wonder what other chemicals they had. Maybe basil would make it taste good. Basil makes everything taste good, pretty much. I wonder if anyone¡¯s tried to make basil ice cream yet. That should be a thing. I used to get basil lemonade all the time, it tasted healthy. And good, but that was because of all the sugar. I haven¡¯t had basil lemonade in like forever. I should go make some. Mint. Reduced espresso and mint syrup would probably be a great energy drink. And¡­ No, putting wasabi in it would be too much. I mean, it¡¯d wake someone up, that¡¯s for sure, but I think it¡¯d send them straight to the hospital. If there was a hospital here. What would mint and wasabi taste like? I mean, wasabi is like a paste, right? So just mix it with water and mint syrup and it¡¯d be¡­ something. Cuz the minty feeling uses different pain receptors than spicy feeling, and wasabi goes straight up your nose and forehead, while mint just stays in your mouth. So it wouldn¡¯t be like mixing mint and a ghost pepper or anything. Yeah, I should probably try that before putting espresso in it. Or, putting it in espresso. And, bright side, if it kills me, I¡¯ll just respawn back here! Woo! Here I go! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (5) Dear Diary, I mentioned the whole ¡°shame I can¡¯t keep my cape¡± thing to Avi, and he (after a lot of stuttering) asked if I wanted to share a spousal inventory with him. I obviously said yes, so we¡¯re engaged! Woo! I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll ever get around to actually having a ceremony and wedding and stuff. I don¡¯t really¡­ feel the need? Maybe eventually I will, but not now. The ring¡¯s description is basically ¡°congrats, you¡¯re married to whoever wears the other ring¡±, so I guess by getting the rings we skipped the engagement part and went straight to married, at least according to the system. Avi said he always just wanted to elope. Being the absolute center of attention is his worst nightmare, after all. So yeah! That¡¯s why I haven¡¯t written in a couple days, I¡¯ve been too busy just¡­ enjoying life. Sorry, non-sapient notebook. In other news, I have been banned from cooking after drinking alcohol. Apparently it scares people or something. Gin was the only one brave enough to try my espresso mint wasabi energy drink. She didn¡¯t die, which is always good. Her opinion was ¡°that¡¯s¡­ sumpthin¡¯...¡± which was the same thing she said when Nat and I accidentally made blooming onions in the oil we¡¯d used to make spicy fish sticks. So I¡¯m pretty sure she thought it was horrible. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. She said it woke her up, though, so I¡¯m counting it as a success. Yesterday, Y very sneakily gave me a piece of paper with a list of chemicals that¡¯s in energy drinks. That¡¯s just the kind of thing he knows. He also helpfully added that the chemicals can be found in cheese, fish oil, and coffee. I think, from the way Kimi reacted to my attempt at a wake-up juice, that he¡¯s already tried to make one and she forbid him from ever trying again. But she¡¯s not my boss, so I¡¯m gonna try making one! Plus, Y¡¯s always dealt with chemicals, not food. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he just tossed fish, cheese and coffee into a blender. Whereas I know how to get oil out of fish, and the proper way to make cheese liquid. And how to reduce espresso. It¡¯s not a whole lot better, but at least it¡¯d end up liquid instead of¡­ sludge-y. I think I¡¯ll add in mint syrup, too, for flavor and hopefully to emulsify the oil a little. Oh! Mika offered to engrave our rings! She said she can do simple patterns and letters, and if we give her time she¡¯d be able to do something more complicated. Avi asked about a lotus design, and they¡¯re currently drawing out different patterns. They¡¯re all super pretty, I can¡¯t wait to see what they end up with. I was very slightly surprised he didn¡¯t ask for a dinosaur footprint or something, but that¡¯s not fair to him. I haven¡¯t asked yet, but I¡¯m pretty sure lotus flowers symbolize something. I never really cared about the ¡°meaning¡± of rocks or flowers, I just like things for being pretty. But Avi kinda knows what things mean. Not in a seriously-believes way, more like in a learned-as-a-kid way. Whatever lotus flowers mean, I¡¯ll just be happy to have a design Avi helped make. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 51 (Notice)
To: Occupants of Floors 2, 42, 97, 99
From: Admin
Subject: Shared Floor
Next cycle, I¡¯ll be opening a shared floor for all non-players in the dungeon. It will be an amusement park on Floor 93.5. I¡¯ve become a fan of delegation, so here¡¯s some tasks for you all¡­ Yetis: You¡¯ll be in charge of security. I¡¯ve got a list of rules I¡¯ll send you when the cycle resets, you just make sure everyone follows them. If you think of any extra rules that are needed, ask Cynoe to send them to me. He¡¯s the only one of your group who didn¡¯t reply ¡°yes¡± to my query two cycles ago, so I trust him to not bother me with dumb, fun-reducing stuff. Mosquitoes: I¡¯m going to have shape-changing potions available, and I need your opinions on how to handle hive minds with them. Also, I¡¯m putting you in charge of music for the park. Your stuff is usually fairly happy-sounding, so come up with a couple long songs for me to play on repeat. Or ask other bands for songs. I don¡¯t care, you¡¯re in charge. Floor 2 kobolds: You¡¯ll be in charge of safety and maintenance. I have the park set to magically clean itself at midnight every night, so don¡¯t worry about that. But if a ride looks like it¡¯s about to yeet people into the ceiling, or a walkway gets too rickety, let me know. You and the yetis will have the ability to stop rides; use this power responsibly. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Floor 97 kobolds: The floor will open up to everyone when the Floor 2 kobolds get sent down there. Before that happens, I want you to set up an inauguration party. Have it last all cycle. You can do it, I believe in you. Whichever one of you was deep-frying chocolate cake for your fair thing, message me, I need to talk to you about food. I¡¯ve tried to automate everything, but if it turns out actual people are needed to work on rides and stuff, I¡¯ll take people from your group. If being an amusement park mook has been your lifelong dream, message me so I can have a list ready. I¡¯m overseeing it all myself for the first cycle, then I¡¯m going to choose one of you to oversee everything for me. If you want the job, let me know and I¡¯ll decide who gets it later. That should be about it. Don¡¯t tell anyone about this, especially a certain group of catgirls and their friends. They are officially players, and I haven¡¯t decided if they should be allowed in yet. This will be a non-player-only thing. There¡¯ll be doors to it from every floor, so you can find and kidnap all the wolves in the dungeon if you want. They¡¯ll automatically be yoinked back to their floor when a player enters, same as everyone else. Oh, the hedge maze and house will stay. Mostly because getting rid of them would require effort. Yep, that¡¯s all.
Cycle 51 (6) Dear Diary, The players got here! One group is convinced the entrance to the secret floor is hidden in one of our walls somewhere. At first they thought it was under our buildings, but after dying to quicksand a couple times they decided that wasn¡¯t the answer. If they stay much longer I think one of us is going to tell them it¡¯s in the trees. Just to get them to stop ransacking our shops. At this rate the group that kept going will get to the end and push the button before they find the entrance in the chest. To be fair, we didn¡¯t exactly find it, either. We cheated and went backwards. If the players find the entrance, I wonder how they¡¯d react to the park and empty pavement. They might not find those areas, and there¡¯s a chance they¡¯ll be lucky and get to the exit super quick, but still. It is kinda an odd thing. It¡¯s obviously not finished, whatever it is, and the Admin tries to pretend everything is always finished and perfect. I think¡­ I think the Admin has to act like that. Like ¡°yes, everything I make is perfect and I always know what I¡¯m doing¡±. But he¡¯s sorta given up with us and the kobolds. Not that we find anything bad or broken, not really, but he¡¯s ok with us seeing how he makes things up as he goes along. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Oh! Mika finished engraving our rings! They¡¯re sooo pretty! She put six flowers on them, three facing up and three down, with just a little dot between them. The engravings aren¡¯t colored or anything, so they aren¡¯t super noticeable, but I like the subtlety. It¡¯s almost like a secret. Avi said lotus flowers represent lots of things, but the important things are eternity, beauty and enlightenment. Apparently there¡¯s no flower that represents food, epicness and dinosaurs, so I think lotus was a good choice. In other news, Gigi messaged Aya and asked what level she should get to before trying to fight her way down through the dungeon. So I guess she¡¯s trying to explore! That¡¯s cool. I¡¯m glad¡­ I¡¯m glad. I still feel guilty about how we all treated her when she was here. I think a part of that for me is how we all immediately became best friends with her replacement. If¡­ I don¡¯t know. There¡¯s no way to change the past. But if we¡¯d known what was going on with her, I think we would have tried harder to be her friend. Anyways, it¡¯s good she¡¯s exploring and has friends and goals now. I hope it goes well for her, and she has lots of fun. If she ever makes it all the way down here, I¡¯ll ask the kobolds to throw a party for her. Speaking of the kobolds¡­ They¡¯re excited about something, but they won¡¯t say what. Which, I¡¯m trying to not feel insulted, we aren¡¯t kobolds, but we are friends. It surprised me that Nat changed the subject when I asked what was going on. Unless it¡¯s like a surprise party for someone. It would be fair to assume that I can¡¯t keep a secret, especially if it¡¯s something exciting. I guess we¡¯ll find out eventually. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 52 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! This cycle we¡¯re wolfkin! I like it a lot more than being an orc. I don¡¯t know, I just like being covered in fur. Wolfkin are kinda¡­ werewolf-y. Big, tall, not really built for walking on two feet or four feet. And covered in fur. The fur ranges from almost white to almost black, but always grey. Mine is kinda dark. Our magic color only affects our eyes and paw pads. I think it¡¯s fun that I¡¯m a big scary monster thing with bright green toe beans. It just¡­ makes life a tiny bit sillier. Our party this cycle is me, Avi, Kimi, Y, Mika and Samantha. Samuel and Samurai are with Lily and Staab, so we¡¯ll see what happens there. Aya is going solo, and has changed back to being Ty. Ty said that something about being a big werewolf monster thing made him want to be¡­ him. Which, the Sams and I fully agree this was a good choice. I don¡¯t think Avi agrees, but that might have just been because of my reaction. Oh, speaking of reactions, when we got to Floor 2 and said hi to the kobolds, they acted¡­ weird. Like they didn¡¯t really want to be around us. It makes me wonder if the kobolds, all the kobolds, decided to not be friends with us. I don¡¯t know why else they wouldn¡¯t want to tell us stuff. Last cycle I asked Nat what was up, and she didn¡¯t answer. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Y said we should ask Lewis. I don¡¯t exactly disagree with that, but that makes it official. Mika said one of the band members might tell her, and wants Avi to help write a letter asking why they¡¯re acting weird. Avi would rather not write a letter, and wants to wait till we get down there and see if they¡¯re still acting weird. I agree with Avi. I mean, the Floor 97 kobolds were acting like they were preparing for a party, and didn¡¯t want us to be a part of the preparation. We don¡¯t know the Floor 2 kobolds as well, so maybe that¡¯s just their personality when preparing a surprise party. Either way, talking about it in person would be best. At least the wolves were still excited to see us. And no one else has acted weird. Oh, Mika and Samantha are against us kidnapping velociraptors this cycle. Kimi and Y don¡¯t care if we do or not. Mika has always been kinda against us kidnapping animals. She thinks we should get normal pets like normal people. Tonight Avi and I decided we don¡¯t want to be normal people, and will try to kidnap a mimic. The first floor they¡¯re on is 25, so that¡¯ll give Mika time to think she¡¯s finally gotten through to us before we try to befriend an aggressive chair. ¡­They do explode when their health gets low, though. I wonder if that¡¯s a thing they can do whenever they want. I hope not. Oh! If they can change shape to anything they want, maybe we can get one to change into a hat! Having a hat as a pet would be pretty epic. I¡¯ll ask Avi what we should try to get the mimic to be. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 52 (2) Dear Diary, We passed Floor 17 today, and didn¡¯t kidnap any velociraptors. We made a giant bridle thing and pretended to kidnap the spinosaurus. Mika was like ¡°no, nope, absolutely not!!!¡± and we were like ¡°but you said no velociraptors, and this isn¡¯t a raptor!¡± It was hilarious. Kimi and Y figured out instantly what we were doing, and helped. Well, Y helped. Kimi mostly just tried not to laugh. Eventually we gave up the game, and left the floor with no pets. Mika is still mad at us, but in a sore loser kinda way, not in a serious way. We¡¯ll see how she reacts on Floor 25 when we kidnap a mimic. It should be epic. Oh, we asked Kimi and Y what they kept with their two extra slots from the rings. Kimi keeps a fire dagger in there (she uses two), and Y said he has a pair of socks that never get wet. I¡¯m pretty sure that was a joke. Although it might not be. That is the kind of stupid thing he¡¯d keep. I¡¯m kinda tempted to look for a couple more loot boxes, just to see what cool stuff we find. It takes time, and usually something¡¯s guarding them, but it would be fun. I¡¯ll go see if anyone else wants to hunt for loot boxes! Goodnight, Dungeon!
*****
To: All Non-Players
From: Admin
Subject: Shared Floor
Hello! This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Starting this cycle, I¡¯m opening up a non-player-only floor for everyone. You will find a portal opening up somewhere along the wall of your Floor. It leads to what is technically Floor 93.5. The portals are all numbered, so as long as you can read, you shouldn¡¯t get lost. Rules:
  • You can be there whenever a player isn¡¯t on your Floor. If a player enters your Floor, you will automatically be yoinked back, and the portal will close until they leave.
  • Don¡¯t let the players know there¡¯s a Floor they can¡¯t access.
  • There are race-changing potions available. They only work on Floor 93.5. Don¡¯t try to figure out how to get them to work off it, or I¡¯ll have to restrict them. They don¡¯t work on things like wolves and spiders, so don¡¯t even bother trying.
  • Don¡¯t be an asshole. The only people allowed to be assholes are the yetis from Floor 99, who are my security people. If you¡¯re a jerk, I¡¯ll have to ban you or something.
  • Alcohol is available. If you want to get anything more than tipsy, go back to your Floor. The yetis will forcibly remove anyone drunk.
  • I do not like making new rules. If you do something that makes me have to make a new rule, it won¡¯t end well for you.
  • Going through portals to Floors that aren¡¯t yours is allowed. Just try to not get caught on one when players show up. Floors players are on won¡¯t have open portals, so if you see the portal to Floor 19 is closed, visiting Floor 20 is a bad idea.
  • Don¡¯t destroy things on purpose without asking me for permission.
  • No running in the pool area. There isn¡¯t a pool area, so this one should be easy.
  • If you die, you¡¯ll respawn back on your Floor. Still, try not to die, and don¡¯t kill anyone.
If you have boring, serious questions, talk to the Floor 99 yetis. I think they¡¯ve made themselves hats for easy identification. If you have fun, silly questions, talk to the Floor 97 dragon. He¡¯s probably wearing a party hat and looking resigned about it. If you wish to shower me in praise and compliments, feel free to message me directly. ¡­I¡¯m not wearing a hat. Have fun. Admin
Cycle 52 (3) Dear Diary, Ok, something happened. I don¡¯t know what, but everyone¡¯s acting weird. They don¡¯t want to talk to us this cycle. It¡¯s like they¡¯re impatient to get somewhere. I don¡¯t know. We asked for clues about loot boxes, and everyone¡¯s been like ¡°nah, no clues, we¡¯ll take you there! And then you can leave!¡± I¡¯d wonder if we insulted someone, but it¡¯s everyone. There¡¯s no way we insulted literally everyone. When we get to Floor 60 we¡¯ll ask Gigi about it. We asked the catgirls on Floor 28, but they didn¡¯t say anything. They just looked awkward and changed the subject. But I think Gigi will tell us what happened. If not her, then yeah, we¡¯ll probably have to ask Lewis. Avi and I didn¡¯t manage to make a mimic our pet. We were pretty close, though! We found one (it was a rug), gave it food, and tried to pick it up. It changed into a big pillow, which was perfect, aaand that¡¯s when Mika realized what we were doing and killed it. We were both very upset. Especially since it exploded while we were holding it, and it kinda blew our hands off. Mika knows they explode. She should have waited until we put it down. So yeah, no mimic pet for us this cycle. Mika and Samantha made sure and killed all the other mimics on the floor before we could get to them. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s fair, but there¡¯s not much we can do about it. Unless¡­ Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. We¡¯re between Floors 33 and 34 right now. Floor 33 has wolves and spiders on it. Mika made sure we couldn¡¯t kidnap any wolves while we were there as a group, but if we sneak up after she falls asleep¡­ She would be so mad if she came to breakfast and we were just casually feeding our new wolf pets. Or even better, if we were feeding our new spider pet. I wonder what spiders like to eat. I don¡¯t have any bug innards to give them, and I don¡¯t know what that would even taste like. They like¡­ drink dissolved bug guts, right? So maybe spiders would like a meat smoothie? If I put it in bread or something, that should look enough like a bug that they¡¯d know what to do. Maybe. The problem with feeding things like spiders and mimics is, whatever I give them has to be tastier than we are. I don¡¯t know what we taste like to them, so I don¡¯t know what would taste better. And then there are other factors, like how some creatures refuse to eat something that isn¡¯t moving, because eating week-old carrion is usually bad for your health. Unless you¡¯re a bird with stomachs that can handle all that bacteria and stuff. Well, I guess that only applies to predators. Herbivores prefer eating things that aren¡¯t moving around, I think. If a bush ran away from a deer I think it would be very suspicious of that bush and go find one that wouldn¡¯t run. But we aren¡¯t trying to befriend a deer! We¡¯re trying to befriend giant spooders! When I had a pet mini spooder from the actual pet shop, obviously I tried to feed it things. But it didn¡¯t eat. At all. And none of the official pets ever act hungry. The dogs and cats accept treats, but they never beg for them or anything. That always bothered me a teeny bit. ¡­Looks like Mika and Samantha just went to their cabins. Time to go kidnap something! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 52 (4) Dear Diary, Well, we didn¡¯t get a spider pet. Apparently we taste better than anything else I tried to give them. Can¡¯t blame them, Avi does taste pretty goo- But! I had plenty of meatballs, and we were able to befriend one of the wolves! Only one of them, though. The rest stayed suspicious. So we have a wolf friend with us now! Her name is Ruby, cuz she has glowing red eyes. All the wolves on that floor have glowing red eyes. I don¡¯t know why, probably just to look scarier or something. It¡¯s a dark-ish floor, and seeing glowing red eyes glaring out at you from shadows is very creepy. When Samantha saw Ruby she was alarmed for a few seconds, then just laughed. She didn¡¯t say anything about it. Mika saw Ruby and very clearly wanted to say something, but didn¡¯t. She has Very Specifically Not said anything about it all day. Avi and I think it¡¯s hilarious. Kimi and Y think it¡¯s hilarious, too, and have been showering love on Ruby. They never really interacted much with our pets before, but if they keep this up, by the time we get home Ruby will be more their pet than ours. I¡¯d be fine with that. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. People still act weird around us. Y decided we should teleport over all the floors, since obviously we aren¡¯t wanted. We talked to everyone else, and they agreed. We¡¯ll just get home as fast as possible and figure it out from there. The only problem is, me and Y are the only teleporters. So Ty and the other group will still be going almost the same speed. Well, Ty has his lightning teleport spell, but he says it can only go a quarter of the way across a floor. It¡¯s not nearly as good as my teleport, plus it can¡¯t do groups. So yeah, we¡¯ll probably get home a day or two before everyone else. Kimi and Mika want to set up prank traps everywhere. I¡¯m debating joining them. Avi doesn¡¯t like pranks, and wants us to stay out of it. I know it¡¯s just silly fun, but then the last time he asked me to not do something¡­ Yeah, that¡¯s a whole thing we still don¡¯t talk about. Not that I¡¯m never going to do anything he tells me not to, but this is just a silly thing. I don¡¯t feel strongly about it. But he kinda does. He¡­ has a good reason to not like pranks. Obviously these won¡¯t be the same kind of prank a school bully would pull, but they¡¯re still pranks. One of the things Kimi wanted to do was fill Lily¡¯s shop with balloons. I might help with that, just because it¡¯s very clearly not harmful, and it won¡¯t destroy anything. Mika has bigger, more elaborate prank ideas that would not be OSHA-approved. Samantha asked about the pranking capabilities of potions and the misting thing. Kimi and Y are currently writing out all the ways they need to test the misting device before we get home. Maybe I should just make a ¡°we¡¯re sorry for pranking everyone¡± cake. I haven¡¯t made a big cake in a while¡­ Yeah, that¡¯d give me something to do. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 52 (5) Dear Diary, We¡¯re home! We got here like four hours ago, had dinner, and then everyone but me and Avi went to set up pranks. Tomorrow I¡¯m going to make a cake to apologize for the pranks. And help blow up balloons. Avi isn¡¯t sure if he¡¯s going to help with any of that yet. Oh, Mika went to give some music sheets to her band, and found that the door to the secret floor is gone. So I guess Floor 93.5 is no more. Which is sad, because I liked having a shortcut to the kobolds. Mika says she¡¯s going to wait for everyone else to get here before heading down. Her music can wait until after pranks. Ruby made it all the way here! She didn¡¯t really like being teleported, but it didn¡¯t make her freak out or anything, Overall she¡¯s been a very good doggo. And yeah, she kinda likes Kimi and Y more than us now. So she¡¯s staying with them instead of at the diner. I¡¯m not really all that jealous, especially since Avi wants us to try a couple new things with the dracoraptors this cycle. I don¡¯t need a wolf pet, I¡¯ve got dinosaur pets! Kinda. Dinosaur friends. Dinosaur¡­ acquaintances. Yeah. Acquaintances. Oh! If the secret door is gone, and no one will be using the walkway, Avi and I can bring a couple of the dracoraptors here! It won¡¯t be a problem cuz there won¡¯t be anyone to eat! Except us, of course. But that¡¯s ok cuz we respawn here anyways. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Iiiin other news, it has been proposed that next cycle, since we¡¯re out of races to try, we all swap genders. Just to try, for a cycle. The Sams suggested it, and the majority agree it could be fun. I¡­ don¡¯t know if I should. I mean, ten cycles ago I totally would have, but I¡¯m not just worried about how I feel about things any more. And it¡¯s not like I haven¡¯t tried it. Back when the gender-swap potions appeared in Kimi¡¯s shop on like Cycle 5 we all bought them. It was¡­ an experience. It gave me chest hair, which felt weird. I¡¯m not a fan of chest hair. Especially not over fur. Thankfully nekos don¡¯t have facial hair, or I might have accidentally shaved off a whisker or two trying to get rid of a beard. Overall, though, I didn¡¯t hate it. Not enough to say I never wanted to try again. Thing is, I did try it again. With Avi. Via. It¡­ didn¡¯t go well. At all. For either of us, but mostly for¡­ her. Avi likes being Avi. I just like the person who is really good at playing drums and has an unhealthy obsession with dinosaurs. And that person¡­ doesn¡¯t like being touched by men. If everyone agrees to switch genders for a cycle, and I said I wanted to, I know he¡¯d go back to being Via. That¡¯s not really a big deal. But for the whole cycle, basically, we¡¯d be nothing more than friends. Maybe not for the whole cycle. I just know the first couple days would be awkward. A part of me still wants to do it. The potions decide what you should look like when you take them, but changing on a cycle reset lets you decide yourself. So I could get rid of the chest hair and keep my jawline the same. That might help. Or not. I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve still got a while to think it over. Goodnight, Dungeon
Cycle 52 (Admin) The Admin sat in a ferris wheel car, watching the ceiling draw closer. Next to him, Emmy watched the park drop away. As far as he was concerned, Floor 93.5 was perfect. Something was bound to go wrong eventually, but at the moment it was good. Given that all the rides were packed out, everyone else seemed to think so, too. ¡°Hey, I have a question,¡± Emmy said slowly, turning to him. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you know, or if you can answer, but¡­ where are all the kids?¡± The Admin stiffened. He couldn¡¯t answer. ¡°I mean, a lot of people died, right? That¡¯s why we¡¯re here, right?¡± she asked. ¡°I¡­ I think I remember drowning. If there was a tsunami, some kids must have died. And if kids died, they¡¯d love to come to a theme park.¡± He sighed. ¡°Yeah. There¡¯s a couple demographics I¡¯m missing, if you look.¡± ¡°What¡­ what happened?¡± The Admin felt the car stop. They were three stops from the top. At the very top, someone over five feet tall could reach up and touch the ceiling. ¡°Calvin? Can you not answer?¡± ¡°Not supposed to,¡± he said softly, then looked at her. ¡°Long story short, north-east of Hawaii there¡¯s a new volcanic island. Umm, it kinda ripped the north-east corner of the Pacific tectonic plate away from the North American plate. Everything from the San Andreas fault to the end of the Alaskan Peninsula was yoinked seven feet in the direction of Hawaii. Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, floods, freaky weather, all that jazz.¡± She stared at him. He coughed nervously, trying to fill the silence. "Technically there''s a plate between those two, and it''s... bigger now? Or something. One of the Admins was a geologist, and says the area that was revealed will be a great boon to the scientific community. As soon as, y''no, people stop dying and they can explore it." Emmy watched him for a few seconds more, thinking. ¡°How many died?¡± ¡°In the first two months? More than fifty million, less than seventy-five, then everything settled down. That¡¯s all I know. About 80% were in the US and Canada. Souls are separated by native language, so I don¡¯t know what happened to¡­ the other 20%.¡± ¡°So¡­¡± She paused as the car started moving again. ¡°Big crisis happened, lots of people died¡­ Did you die, too?¡± ¡°No, I died about six years ago.¡± ¡°And you were chosen as an Admin because of your altruism and people skills,¡± Emmy guessed, smirking. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. He smiled. ¡°One of the language options is JavaScript. I chose that, thinking it was funny, and got asked if I¡¯d rather live in an RPG world or build an RPG world. Said build, and got put to work designing a new planet.¡± ¡°Ok,¡± she said, getting serious again. ¡°So there was a big disaster, lots of people died, and¡­¡± ¡°There wasn¡¯t enough room,¡± he said. ¡°Everyone over the age of sixty-ish had a place ready and waiting. With a few outliers, most of them are already living their lives. For this event, since lots of families died at the same time, they kept them together and shoved them onto the planet with all the old souls. When the planet reached capacity, souls were separated into three categories: people with children under eighteen, people in committed relationships without children, and childless adults not in a relationship. I, as a relatively new coder with zero social skills, got given a share of the single people. I¡¯ve never dealt with souls directly before.¡± Emmy nodded as the car stopped. "What about people who died after that? We''ve been here a couple years, right?" "I don''t exactly know. I think a decent amount are being sent off to worlds that weren''t affected as much, like... French world or Swahili world. But there are a couple minor dungeons where souls are being continuously placed." ¡°Why dungeons? Why not just put people to sleep?¡± she asked. ¡°Souls who sleep for long periods of time get¡­¡± He debated. ¡°Freezer burn. They forget¡­ Basically, keeping a soul asleep for longer than two months is how you get supervillains.¡± ¡°So this place is just stalling while the real world gets made?¡± ¡°While the real world gets finished, yeah. There are a couple other details; things we¡¯re looking for in people. Leadership qualities and stuff so we can drop souls into a ready-to-go infrastructure framework. Usually worlds are started with small isolated communities, but this one will get cities and countries Also, the admin who makes the best dungeon gets a promotion.¡± She smiled faintly. ¡°I hope you get it.¡± He stood as the car began moving again, reaching for the ceiling. ¡°If I got it, I¡¯d be cut off from you.¡± ¡°I hope you don¡¯t get it.¡± The Admin shrugged. ¡°At this point I¡¯ll have all my memories erased and be shoved onto the world with everyone else.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Emmy¡¯s smile dropped. ¡°Hey, my brother was seventeen. What¡­ are the odds that I¡¯ll see him again?¡± His fingers touched the ceiling. ¡°Low. I can¡¯t ask where he is; different set of Admins.¡± She thought it over, frowning. ¡°Will he be with my mom and stepdad, or my dad and his girlfriend? Or will my mom and dad be put together again?¡± ¡°For the record, I¡¯m not telling you any of this,¡± he muttered. ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly how it works with minors. There¡¯s a couple different age ranges that get asked different things. An actual person talks to them, so your brother will be asked about his parents and family life. Adults get a series of questions, like ¡®do you have kids¡¯ and ¡®are you in a relationship¡¯. If you say yes, then it asks you to type in names. If there¡¯s a conflict, like two people not in a relationship claiming a kid, that gets flagged and an Admin pulls everyone together to sort it all out.¡± ¡°Mom would have said I¡¯m her kid,¡± Emmy said. ¡°I was 23, but I¡¯m still her kid.¡± ¡°That¡¯s expected and would have been ignored.¡± He sat down as the ceiling moved away. ¡°If it¡¯s any consolation, they probably don¡¯t remember you exist. By the time we get to Cycle 100 you won¡¯t be able to remember anything before Cycle 10. So you won¡¯t remember them, either.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ horrible.¡± The Admin smiled bitterly. ¡°Yes. Yes it is.¡± Cycle 52 (6) Dear Diary, We aren¡¯t NPC¡¯s any more. We¡¯re players. I know there are differences, but I thought it wasn¡¯t that big of a deal. Floor 93.5 is, apparently, a party floor now. An NPC-only party floor. We aren¡¯t invited in. It¡­ kinda hurts. We went down and asked Lewis why no one seemed to like us this cycle, and he gave us a letter from the Admin that explained it all. A physical letter. The Admin didn¡¯t even want to message us personally, which, I thought we were kinda friends! I guess not. Sheesh. Anyways, the letter mostly said that since we aren¡¯t really NPCs, he can¡¯t let us onto the party floor. He¡¯s going to talk it over with a couple people, and decide if next cycle he¡¯ll let us use the entrance in the treasure chest. I don¡¯t know who he¡¯s going to talk to, but I hope they tell him to let us in. I want to party with everyone! Since we can¡¯t really do anything with anyone, we¡¯ve decided to hold a marble race tournament. We aren¡¯t really all that excited about it. Not like how we used to be. I mean, we aren¡¯t stuck on our floor, but leaving would be¡­ rude. If we go talk to people, they¡¯ll be stuck on their floor again. Not partying with everyone in the dungeon. Mika and Avi¡¯s band came to visit. And Nat came by to ask if I got any new ingredients this cycle (I didn¡¯t), so it¡¯s not like everyone¡¯s forgotten about us. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I don¡¯t know, I just feel left out. There must be hundreds of people there, and I know most of them. I¡¯ve given a lot of them food. We¡¯re not super good best friends, but we know each other. We should be allowed to party, too. Besides, we were NPCs until like twelve cycles ago! I¡¯m just frustrated. By the unfairness. Even if I understand why it has to be unfair. Iiiiiin other news, the pranking went well. I think. It¡¯s kinda started a pranking war, which I think everyone is having fun with. Except Lily, who very much did not appreciate being turned into a shark by a crossbow-launched belt. The shark belt is the only one that can¡¯t easily be taken off alone. So yeah. Avi and I are being left out of that, which is good. I¡¯m not really smart enough to come up with pranks and counter-pranks. Plus, since I¡¯m not involved, that means I get to hear everyone¡¯s plans! Tonight the Sams are going to dig a pit trap in front of Kimi¡¯s door. Mika is working on an ice cream launcher. I think Ty and Lily are up checking if the walkway goes over any of our roofs. Well, I know it goes over mine, but I¡¯m safe. Oh yeah, Ty said the wolfkin race is probably his favorite. Which made the rest of us remember we were trying to decide which races our favorite was. Obviously neko is my favorite, but I think my second favorites were goblin and fairy. I just like being smol. Half-dragon was pretty fun, too, but that was just because of the wings. Next cycle we¡¯re all going to be our favorite race, and see which one wins. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯ll be neko. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 53 (1) Dear Diary, Ok, I need to write this in chronological order. Just so I don¡¯t forget anything. So! The marble races! Samurai got gold, Avi got silver, and Lily got bronze. I got fifth place, which isn¡¯t all that bad. My team got gold in one race, so I¡¯m proud of them. The pranking wars ended when Y and Kimi set fire to Ty¡¯s roof, then the Sams set fire to all the roofs, and then we had to call the Admin and ask him to stop the fire before everything burned to the ground. The Admin wasn¡¯t exactly thrilled about that, so a truce was called. Then players showed up, and then the cycle ended. I feel like ¡°roofs¡± isn¡¯t right. Like the plural of roof should have a V in it. Rooves? No, that looks super weird. I guess it is roofs. Oh! Lily and Staab are very tentatively back together. They aren¡¯t Officially together again, but they¡¯re in the same party this cycle, and are getting along well. I don¡¯t know what happened between Staab and Samantha, because I didn¡¯t ask. And I never will ask. I guess it just didn¡¯t work out. Anyways, the cycle reset! I''m going to spend this whole cycle as a neko! I debated becoming a fairy again, but nah. I am, deep in my soul, a catgirl. That''s all I want to be. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Avi is a half-dragon. He said he was just super curious about what his breath would be, since silver is mostly illusion-based. (Also dragons are basically fantasy dinosaurs, but I''m sure that has noooothing to do with it, nope.) Turns out, instead of fire or whatever, silver dragons breathe out butterfly illusions. Which is pretty cool, if you ask me. Ty is a wolfkin again. He''s having fun with it, even if it does get him a lot of attention. He''s wearing the necklace armor, and yes, his muscles are very... aesthetically pleasing. Lily is an elf. She says the magic buff is the best. Mika is a hobgoblin, which surprised me. She is also he now, and has decided to go by Miko. Which is a cute name. He''s got a couple axes as weapons this cycle, and is having fun. Kimi and Y are both neko. They''ve switched genders. Y said "Y" is a perfectly gender-neutral name, and will be keeping it. Kimi said if Aya can go by Ty, then as a dude, Kimi will be Shaun. Y thought that was funny, for some reason, and y''no, I''m glad they found each other. It''s good to have someone who understands your insanity when everyone else just thinks it''s weird. Anyways, Staab (still Staab) is a goliath. I''m not really surprised by that. That leaves the Sams. Samantha is now Sam Prime, and has chosen fairy as his preferred race. Samuel and Samurai just¡­ swapped names along with genders. Because why not, I guess. Samuel said he wanted to be an otterkin, but since that race isn¡¯t available any more, he went with kobold. Samurai decided to be a neko. Which means neko wins for Best Thing To Be! Woo! A part of me wants to be all deep and philosophical about why no one chose to be human, but that sounds boring. Maybe someday I will, but not tonight. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 53 (2) Dear Diary, WE GOT IN!!! We were allowed to go to the secret floor!!!!! Aaaaand the secret door to our floor is open again! So from now on, all we have to do is get to Floor 14, and we¡¯re basically home! The Admin made a passageway from Floor 14 (the first catgirl floor) to Floor 28 (the second catgirl floor). But, if we go to the door and say ¡°swordfish¡±, it¡¯ll change to be a door to Floor 93.5 for a couple seconds. The door is just a door in the inn, at the end of the hallway between all the rooms. So unless you know there isn¡¯t really a room there, it just looks like a normal door. I guess it ends up in the inn on Floor 28 if you don¡¯t say the password. There¡¯s another passageway from Floor 75 (the catgirl floor above ours) to our floor. The Admin made the same door in Avi¡¯s inn, but the players already searched through it looking for the secret door, and would think it¡¯s super unfair if it was there now. So he put it in the tree we built the stairs to our walkway on. Floor 75 is a snow floor, so he put the door there in an igloo. But enough about doors and secret passageways! We got to Floor 93.5! The maze is still there, with the house for the Floor 2 kobolds. I guess they kinda work there now? Not that there¡¯s a lot to do. The grassy park area is still a park, with big trees that are great for climbing on, and they¡¯ve got swings hanging all over the place. Oh! And there¡¯s a cute little house for the Floor Keeper next to where the maze starts. Emmy, the kobold who took over for Mika a couple times, is the official person in charge of the floor. I guess the Admin doesn¡¯t want to take care of it, and asked the kobolds to send in applications if they wanted to be the manager. Emmy got the job, so she¡¯s now a catgirl and has to come up with new fun ideas every cycle. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. That¡¯s all cool and stuff, but the pavement area is now an amusement park! It¡¯s got all kinds of roller coasters, and a ferris wheel, and a carousel, and one of those things that sends you way up then drops, and a trampoline area, and all kinds of deep-fried food! And vending machines! Except there¡¯s no money, so they¡¯re just potato chip and soda can dispensers. Oh! And potion dispensers that give shape-changing potions! There¡¯s a potion for just about every race, so now everyone can try everything! AND! The yetis! The weird, rule-loving, no-nonsense yetis! The Admin made them security people. They wander around making sure no one¡¯s doing anything too dangerous. So now they¡¯re official sticks in mud, instead of just randos who want to tell people what to do and stop all our fun. BUT they¡¯re still the Floor 99 yetis. I bet the couple days when there are players on their floor are going to be wild in the park. Anyways, someone is going to set off fireworks in a couple minutes, so I¡¯ve got to go! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 53 (3) Dear Diary, I''m glad the Admin made a floor for all the NPCs. It''s super fun. Apparently last cycle there was an epic party we missed, but that''s ok. A lot of people are coming to our floor to buy stuff and get rooms at the inn, so I almost feel like a full-time diner owner this cycle! If it keeps up I might ask Nat or Mar if they want to help out here so I can get a day off. Thankfully Avi can give people room keys from anywhere as long as he has the inn''s log book with him, or we''d almost never see each other. We haven¡¯t even had time to visit the dracoraptors this cycle. We¡¯d better do that, or next cycle they might pretend they¡¯ve never met us before. ¡­The dracoraptors are really kinda jerks. We haven¡¯t been able to visit the velociraptors, either, but they¡¯ll be good. If we leave Lex and Tim alone they won¡¯t forget we exist and attack us next cycle. Oh! Jenny the dragon came in this morning! She got into the park and took an elf potion, so she wasn¡¯t a dragon. I don¡¯t know how much she looks like how she looked as a human, but she¡¯s gorgeous. I asked why she didn¡¯t take a neko potion, and she said she doesn¡¯t want to have a tail for a while, that last cycle she only took human potions, and she¡¯s slowly trying new things. I understand that. I mean, catgirl is pretty close to human, just with ears and a tail and fur. But Jenny was changed into a giant dragon. She must have had a really hard time figuring out how to¡­ be her. Plus she didn¡¯t have other people to talk to about how to adjust. She just had a bunch of non-talking wyverns to take care of. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Anyways, she ordered a chicken burger and said it was delicious. ...How long ago did I last write? Oh wow, yeah, it''s almost been a week. I guess that shows how busy we''ve been. And not just me and Avi, either. Lily''s basically started a magical school, and is teaching people all kinds of cool stuff. Miko has a list of orders for metal things that will keep him busy for the next three cycles, and has Jef and Tro helping. They¡¯re the kobolds who got second and third place in the blacksmith competition. Shaun and Y had to put a list of business hours on their shop, cuz people were constantly coming in and buying stuff. Actually, I should do that, too. I don''t mind making someone a pizza at one in the morning, but if this is going to keep up I need an actual schedule. Anyways, Ty is the only one who doesn''t have a shop most people care about. Having information is important for players, but NPC''s usually don''t care what the description of the final dragon is. So instead, he''s been going through the floors and getting all the loot boxes. Staab and the Sams go with him, and it looks like they¡¯ve been having fun. They sure have a lot of stuff now, at least. So yeah! Been busy. Sorry I haven''t written. I probably won¡¯t write a lot this cycle. Oh well. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 53 (4) Dear Diary, Avi and I have found a difference between us that we might not be able to get over. A difference bigger than our families coming from different countries, or being raised with different religious beliefs. Neither of us think we¡¯re at fault, so we both refuse to accept the other¡¯s point of view or apologize. I like pineapple on pizza. And not just Hawaiian pizza, no, I think a pizza called an Everything pizza should have pineapple on it. Without pineapple it¡¯s not ¡°everything¡± is it?! Not big chunks of pineapple, not huge slices, just little half-olive sized pieces. The sweetness combines with the salty and savory things, and makes all the flavors stand out more. I mean, pizza dough usually has a ton of sugar in it specifically to enhance the salty toppings. So putting a sweet thing on the top and bottom just makes sense! Plus, baked pineapple is the best. Cooking it makes the strings inside less sharp! It gets all soft and juicy and delicious, and it needs to be in more dishes. Avi¡¯s like ¡°pineapples don¡¯t belong on pizza, they¡¯re not Italian.¡± Yeah, well, guess what else isn¡¯t Italian: TOMATOES. Tomatoes come from South America, and weren¡¯t in any Italian dishes until like the 1600¡¯s! But will anyone argue that tomato sauce has no place on a pizza? Hmm? Absolutely not! That¡¯s like one of the four main pizza ingredients! Bread (Italian), pepperoni (Italian), mozzarella (Italian), and tomato sauce (PERUVIAN). (Ok, the actual mix of ingredients for the sauce with oregano and basil probably originated in Italy, but NOT THE TOMATOES.) (And technically pepperoni was invented in New York, but by Italians, so an argument could be made either way about its Italian-ness.) (YES I HAVE DONE RESEARCH ON THIS.) Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Look, everyone needs a hill to die on, and this is mine. It has always been mine, and I¡¯m not giving it up for anyone! If someone is willing to eat a pizza with tomato sauce, then eating it with pineapple should be just as acceptable. If you don¡¯t like it for the flavor, I won¡¯t argue. But if it¡¯s a high-and-mighty ¡°pRiNcIpLe¡± thing, then you¡¯re just uneducated. Nya. Goodnight, Dungeon!
***** Shaun handed Y a hot dog, sitting down next to her. Around them, the amusement park bustled with life. People were talking, laughing, and generally enjoying themselves. Shaun wondered how many people lived in the dungeon, and if they all came to the park every day. He saw someone familiar and nodded in that direction. "Looks like Emmy has a boyfriend." Y looked over, then frowned. She studied the pair, lowering the hot dog to her lap. Shaun glanced at the tall, yellow-haired catguy, then back at Y. "Trying to think what he really is?" "Yes. There is a downside to giving away race-changing potions, everyone becomes so difficult to recog¡­" Y stopped. She suddenly focused on the hot dog, taking a bite like it was the only thing of interest to her. Shaun smiled, leaning back to eat as well. Emmy and the man holding her hand got in line for the ferris wheel. Y absently pushed her glasses into place, speaking very softly. "How many people do you think have seen the Admin?" She took another bite of the hot dog. "No way," Shaun said, looking at the man. "No. He can''t¡­" The height and skin tone were the same. And yellow was very close to gold. "Y?" "As far as I know, only me, you, and Aya," Y said casually. "There might be more, but we saw him as a human. And annoyed. Not as a happy neko." Shaun felt his ears fold back until they pressed against his skull. "Y, this feels dangerous." "Shall we leave and pretend we never saw him?" "Yes." Y nodded, taking Shaun''s hand. She teleported them to the hedge maze. Cycle 53 (5) Dear Diary, I won! Avi finally conceded that pineapple on pizza is perfectly fine! Hah! Took two days, but that only made victory sweeter. It had the delicious sweetness of pineapple. On pizza. Where pineapple has every right to be. He had Gin make me a pizza with ¡°you win¡± written on it in pineapple. It just¡­ I love him so much. It was perfect. Anyways, the players got here this morning, so Floor 93 is closed to all NPCs. They all came through the door from Floor 75, so I guess the igloo there isn''t as secret and hidden as our treasure chest door is. I presume this means cycles will finish faster now, if players can skip like 30 floors. I mean, they''re missing out on all the experience, so they''ll be super low-level when they get to our floor. But then they can just redo the last seven floors as many times as they want, without respawning too far back. I think... I think if I were a real player I''d do that. Cuz then it''s not just work, it''s more luck. Like, sure, a high-level player can get through high-level floors, but with luck and strategy a low-level player can get through, too. And if they fail enough times, eventually they''ll be high-level. So there''s no real downside. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I wonder if the other dungeons are getting shortcuts, too. Or if cycle number doesn''t matter, and we aren''t really going to get to 100 cycles. Or maybe there''s a prize for the first dungeon to get to 100 cycles, and we''re behind. No, I don''t think it''s a race, or we would have gotten shortcuts a long time ago. Anyways, the players are here, so no NPCs can wander in and get stuff. It''s kinda relaxing, having only eight potential clients on the floor. The insanity was fun for a while, but then it just got a bit much. Hopefully the cycle ends before it can get boring. The first group to show up was the speedrunners. They probably think the shortcuts are the best thing ever. Then a pair who are half-dragons this cycle, who make it here a lot, but I don''t think they manage to push the button all that often. And then Ox''s group got here. Oh, Larissa took Mika''s change to Miko as a personal insult. She said there aren''t enough women in the dungeon, so it''s our duty to balance it out. I asked her why she didn''t tell Ox and Tig to become girls if she feels so strongly about it. I mean, it''s an option, and has no limit on how many times you switch. Apparently it had never occurred to her, and she''s currently trying to convince them to become Viking warrior princesses. I hope she manages it. Mostly because it''d be funny. So far, Tig seems willing to try, but Ox isn''t. Maybe if I go over and tell them they''d be cute as girls... No, I need to tell them they''d look great in bikini armor. That''d work better. I''ll go do that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! We didn''t talk it over or anything, but everyone''s a neko this cycle. We all individually chose it, which I think is kinda cool. Oh, Ty is Aya again, Kimi and Y are back to being Kimi and Y, and Miko is Mika. The Sams... Ok, so, Samantha is Samantha again. I suspect Samuel and Samurai have stayed what they were last cycle, but switched colors. Just to see if anyone noticed. Avi and I are in a party with them and Aya. I don''t know them super super well, but that''s something they would do. And their personalities are different. I can''t say for sure, but I just suspect the one who is currently Samurai is the person who three cycles ago was Samuel. Not confusing at all, nope. It almost surprises me that Aya puts up with their shenanigans, but then they treat her like a goddess. Well, Samantha treats her more like a BFF, but the twins just about worship her. Y jokes about having a harem, but Aya''s got a cult. A part of me wonders how much that has to do with all the time she spent with them when they were ants. I mean, the rest of us spent our days hanging out with the kobolds, but she just about spent full cycles with them. They were a hive mind, so their individual emotions would have been felt by all three of them. If one of them fell in love with her, all three of them would have felt those feelings. And then when they separated, maybe they didn¡¯t remember who the feelings originally belonged to. Or maybe all three of them fell in love with her, since she was their only friend. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. In any case, they¡¯re all happy with the situation, so I¡¯m gonna stop speculating. OH! Larissa did it! She convinced Ox and Tig to be bikini-clad elven warrior princesses this cycle. (Larissa is also an elven warrior princess, but she¡¯s wearing full armor.) Mika and I asked what they wanted to be called, and they chose Oxella and Tiggerina. Which, yes, those are names. Mm-hmm. Yep. Names. ¡­If I ever become a dude I¡¯m just gonna call myself Nick. It¡¯s, like, an actual name. And it makes sense. Anyways, their group is now campaigning for everyone, all the players, to be bikini-clad elven princesses next cycle. They¡¯ve got a list. About an hour ago Larissa messaged Mika and me saying eighteen people have signed up, and asked if I could get everyone in our parties to sign up, too. The Sams, unsurprisingly, agreed instantly. Aya said she didn¡¯t like being an elf all that much, but was talked into it within ten minutes. I¡¯m signing up, because it sounds super fun. Avi hasn¡¯t decided yet. He¡¯s not thrilled about the ¡°bikini-clad¡± part of ¡°bikini-clad elven princess¡±. I think he should just take a bikini and sew a bunch of frills on it. And I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s only the top that has to be a bikini, since there¡¯s no item in the store called ¡°bikini bottom armor¡±. The item called ¡°bikini armor¡± is just the top. So the bottom can be a skirt if he wants. I won¡¯t push too hard for this, though. Unless Staab says he signed up. If Staab becomes a bikini-clad elven princess, literally everyone has to join. That¡¯s like law or something. If it¡¯s not, I decree it law. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (2) Dear Diary, Floor 93.5 has a portal area where there¡¯s a swirly portal to every floor (except Floor 93). It¡¯s a part of the amusement park, and the portals glow in different colors. It¡¯s super pretty. But! Since there¡¯s a portal to every floor, this means we can kidnap all the wolves! And all the velociraptors, but only Avi and I are excited about that. Soooo the Floor 97 kobolds have set up basically a doggy daycare, and are pampering the heck out of all the wolves. A few of us were worried the wolves wouldn¡¯t all become friends, but getting lots of love and treats makes them ok with the other doggos. It helps that the Floor 94 dire wolves and the Floor 7 wolves are already used to us giving them food and love. Two wolf packs being thrilled to be around us made all the other wolf packs less suspicious. Operation Befriend All Creatures is a success! ¡­All Creatures Except Slimes. I will never befriend a slime. It might be the nicest, most friendliest slime in the history of slimes, and no. I won¡¯t be its friend. In other news, there¡¯s a second part to Floor 93.5 now! So, there¡¯s a ferris wheel. At the very top, you can touch the ceiling. Last cycle someone decided to take a spiderclimb potion, and found out it was possible to go from the ferris wheel to the ceiling. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. So this cycle there¡¯s a whole new upside-down park on the ceiling! It¡¯s just grass and flowers, but it¡¯s super pretty. And it smells good. It¡¯s cool to look up from the hedge maze and see people walking around on a grassy field. It feels like¡­ Like a reminder that this place is magic. Yes, we¡¯re in a dungeon full of random floors where one will have a volcano and the next be Snow World, but it¡¯s still easy to forget. ¡­I don¡¯t know if this place is real or not. I mean, it feels real. But it treats universal laws (like gravity) as suggestions. So am I really here, or do I just think I am? But then that leads to a whole bunch more questions that I am not qualified to answer. Some of those things the Admin might not even know the answer to. So I¡¯ll just not ask. Instead I¡¯ll focus on non-complicated things, like how Gin has a boyfriend! She¡¯s the one who made all the food the kiosks at the amusement park sell (the Admin asked for a couple things, then copied them into the System so it could reproduce them endlessly), and one guy decided the creator of those recipes was the love of his life. He¡¯s a hobgoblin from Floor 71, and used to be a cook in a barbecue place. So far they¡¯ve had two dates, where they spent most of their time making food as unhealthy as possible. She says it isn¡¯t love for her yet, but she¡¯s agreed to a third date, so we¡¯ll see how that goes. All I know is it¡¯ll involve boiling things in chocolate syrup. She asked me for a dozen bottles of the stuff. I need to go distract myself before morbid curiosity takes over and I ask to join them. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (3) Bonecrusher the Black walked through the amusement park as an elf, heading for the carousel. A part of him felt that he should stay a dragon, or become a kobold. The other options were for other people. But he didn¡¯t like being a kobold. The form felt far too small after spending years being ten times larger than everyone else. And he simply wouldn¡¯t fit into the park as a dragon. The carousel, just a series of benches and picnic tables that slowly spun, wasn¡¯t the most popular ride in the park, but he liked it. It sat in the exact center, so he could see everything and everyone while riding it. He hopped on as it was still in motion and took a seat. There were half-dragon potions, but the other half was whatever you already were. So a kobold would become a half-kobold half-dragon. Lewis would become a half-dragon¡­ half-dragon. Which wasn¡¯t helpful. A noise distracted him from his musings. He turned around to see a pack of feathered raptors running through the park. They tackled a group of goblins, ripping limbs and heads off with insanely sharp teeth. One screeched, and they took off for the trampoline area. People ran as they bit and slashed everyone in their path. As the carousel continued on, Lewis saw one raptor had green markings, and another had nearly holographic silver stripes in its feathers. They passed out of view, but the screams continued. He watched a pair of yetis run towards the commotion, looking very upset. Lewis smirked. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ***** Dear Diary, So, before now, the players usually were grouped up in the same ten floors. Sometimes a party would pull ahead, and sometimes a group would fall behind, but usually it wasn¡¯t a difference of more than ten. But now, with the shortcuts, players are just all over the place. One party has reached Floor 50, while there are two parties still on Floor 16. This is annoying, cuz it means the NPCs are stuck on their floors longer, and there¡¯s a super cool place to go! I don¡¯t know if the Admin is going to see this as a ¡°problem¡± though. I mean, fighting players is everyone¡¯s job (other than catgirls), so working more should be fine. And it¡¯s not like they won¡¯t be able to visit at all. In other news, running through a crowded amusement park with a pack of dracoraptors is very fun. Avi and I put on belts and joined them, just to get the full ¡°raptor¡± experience. The panicked screams of NPCs are something I will remember for years to come. Although apparently we broke a rule or something by setting a bunch of murder dinos loose in the park, so the yetis sent us all home and banned us from the floor for the rest of the cycle. I¡¯d like to grumble about how unfair it is, and how not-fun the yetis are, but no. They have a point. It was totally worth it, though. And people still come through to the inn and diner, so it¡¯s not like we¡¯re not busy. If it wasn¡¯t a risk of getting us perma-banned, I¡¯d try to figure out how to get Avi as a spinosaurus sized dinosaur. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s some kind of growth potion out there that could be combined a couple times to get him there. I wonder what would happen if I put two potions into a batch of cookies. Like, how much would you grow from eating one cookie? Would it be two potion¡¯s worth of growth? Or if there were eight cookies, would it be ? a potion¡¯s worth? Time to make some cookies! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (4) Dear Diary, Still banned from the park. That¡¯s ok. Avi¡¯s inn is less busy than last cycle, but it¡¯s still popular. And my diner is still constantly busy. Not packed full, but there¡¯s always someone around. I¡¯ve put up a sign saying it¡¯s closed from 10pm to 8am. Kimi only keeps her shop open from like 10am till 3pm, so she¡¯s got more free time. But then she¡¯s not banned from going to the park. Having stuff to do when you¡¯re banned from fun stuff is good. When people aren¡¯t around, I¡¯ve been making cookies! So far, I¡¯ve been making batches of ten cookies, all equal size, and experimenting with the potions. Y already tried reducing a potion, to make it stronger, and he found out only the taste changed. The magical qualities stayed the same, probably due to magic. So I didn¡¯t have to experiment with that. But, being able to reduce them means there¡¯s less liquid I¡¯m putting in the cookies. That¡¯s good. The potions all come in 4-ounce bottles, and an ounce is about two tablespoons. Not a lot of recipes call for eight tablespoons of liquid other than milk. And we can¡¯t replace milk, because milk is one of those chemically important ingredients. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Well, we can replace a little bit, but not a whole lot. Not eight tablespoons¡¯ worth. Anyways, due to magic I guess, the cookies all end up with about half the strength of the potion. So, if I put a spiderclimb potion in, then eat two cookies, I can hang upside-down from my ceiling almost as long as Avi can by drinking the potion straight. There¡¯s a discrepancy of like two seconds, but it¡¯s not very long. And eating four cookies means I can hang on twice as long. There are ten cookies, so that means the magical effect is quintupled! I didn¡¯t know that was a word, and had to ask Kimi about it. So far I¡¯ve tried seven different types of potions, and it always works out like that. Next I¡¯m going to make the batch of cookie dough bigger, and see how far the potion goes. I doubt it¡¯ll be the same strength when I¡¯m making twenty cookies with it, but I don¡¯t know. Magic doesn¡¯t work with scientific laws, after all. Anyways, this means I¡¯ve been eating a lot of cookies. I¡¯m glad I can¡¯t gain weight here, cuz I¡¯ve had like¡­ fifty. In the past day and a half. Avi¡¯s had a bunch, too. And we aren¡¯t even eating all the cookies, either! Kimi and Y have been helping a little, with both the experiments and the cookie-eating, and I¡¯ve just been giving the rest away. Well, giving them away after we make sure they aren¡¯t lethal. Turns out, mixing more than one type of potion into a batch of cookies makes people kinda sick. ¡­I just realized, we never tried eating two different types of cookies at once. I wonder what effect that would have. I doubt it would be the same as the cookies with two potions in them. I¡¯ve gotta go try! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (5)
To: All Players
From: Admin
Subject: Next Cycle
There is a group currently campaigning for all the players to become bikini-wearing female elves next cycle. I will not force anyone into becoming anything they do not want to be. However, I personally would enjoy watching parties of skimpily-clad elf chicks slaughter their way through my dungeon. So any player who starts next cycle as a female elf will receive the following special item:
Golden Bikini Gives 50% resistance to all magical damage. Gives 75% resistance to all bludgeoning damage. Gives 100% resistance to all slashing and stabbing damage.
If you have one and become a man, it¡¯ll become a normal bikini. And if you keep it till Cycle 56 it¡¯ll also become a normal bikini. So yep. Choose wisely.
***** Dear Diary, The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Eating two different types of cookies at the same time just cancels the magic out. But! Eating a cookie then drinking a normal potion gives you the magic from both! So that¡¯s cool. Also, if the cookie batch is bigger than twelve, the potion¡¯s effectiveness is cut to ?. Adding another potion of the same type does nothing. So I¡¯ve got to stick to batches of a dozen, which is fine. In non-cookie news, the Admin is giving away golden bikini armor to all the players who want to join Larissa¡¯s elf girl thing next cycle. Gold is the Admin¡¯s magic color, so these bikinis are going to be basically the most OP thing in the whole dungeon. So yeah, Avi is going to spend Cycle 55 as Via. Staab and Y are going to change, too. And all the Sams will be girls. I guess Samuel will be Sample. Unless Samantha gives up her name and becomes Sam Prime again. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d let Samuel be Sam Prime. ¡­Thinking about their names gives me a headache. Oh! Someone decided to make a newspaper for the secret floor! I¡¯m still banned, so I don¡¯t know who¡¯s in charge, but someone brought a copy for me. Apparently they¡¯ve been interviewing people on what life is like on their floors. Like what they did to spend time. They¡¯re doing it in order of floor, so it¡¯ll be a while before they get to us. The Floor 2 kobolds talked about their basketball court and all the different types of balls they used. There¡¯s other news too, like speculation on what changes will happen each cycle and how many people have been banned. Currently the number is at eight. I wonder what the other six people did to get banned. I mean, they probably didn¡¯t bring raptors to the floor and attack people. Speaking of attacking people, Staab said he¡¯s seen two of the Floor 92 hobgoblins in the park, but not the other two. He says they were super nervous and didn¡¯t want to talk about the whole semi-war between us. So I guess that whole thing is over, at least as far as they¡¯re concerned. That¡¯s good. That means no one has to ever bring it up again! Yay! Lily wants to ask Emmy how she killed them. Like, if there was a strategy or something. That way we can maybe use the same strategy in the next dungeon if we have to go solo and attack groups. Kimi was there, and she said we shouldn¡¯t ask. We should just put it behind us and never think about it again. So I guess Y is still upset about that whole thing. Anyways, I still have to prep food for tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 54 (6) Dear Diary, The players got here! They used the shortcuts, and told Avi they plan on staying here a couple days as they level up enough to beat the last couple of floors. There are two parties, one of four players and one of three. They came to my diner and discussed combining into one party and leaving someone out, but they couldn¡¯t decide who to screw over. So they¡¯re going through as two parties and when one group gets to Floor 99 they¡¯ll talk it over again. I think they should join. I mean, only six people can push the button anyways, so someone is going to lose no matter what. They debated leaving the person with the most button pushes behind, but everyone in the party of three has three pushes, while in the party of four everyone has two. Pushes from after Cycle 40. Before then doesn¡¯t count. It was kinda interesting seeing how seriously they take this. I mean, we only need two button pushes to stay in the game after Cycle¡­ What cycle was it? 75? 80? 60? I can¡¯t remember. ¡­Because I have two button pushes, so it doesn¡¯t matter to me any more. But yeah, they think they need to get like a ¡°high score¡± or something. Although¡­ If they got a lot of button pushes, that means there are less to go around. Meaning there will be less competition in the next cycle group. Which I guess is a good thing. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Note to my future self: Less competition is good. Push the button as many times as possible. Unless there isn¡¯t a button in the next dungeon, in which case just win as much as possible. And unless I don¡¯t have this diary with me, in which case the future me reading it won¡¯t be future enough. Unless I read it on Cycle 99 and remember the note into the next dungeon. Note to self: Read through this diary on Cycle 99. ¡­But that means I need to read it before then so I remember to read it on the last cycle¡­ No, there are 100 cycles. We started with 1, not 0, so the last cycle will be called Cycle 100. Yeah. Anyways, next cycle there¡¯s going to be a marketplace on Floor 93.5! Emmy said she¡¯s going to make part of the grass area into a dirt area and put little stalls up for people to trade things! I¡¯m going to make potion cookies and sell them. Well, not sell. Because money kiiiinda doesn¡¯t really have any value with NPCs. But we can trade with them. So I plan on getting a whole bunch of really cool stuff next cycle! I can¡¯t keep magical stuff in my inventory, so I¡¯m making cookies and leaving them in a cupboard. I hope they stay. Usually things stay in my cupboards where I put them, but sometimes random things will vanish or get moved. Even if they all go poof, I can make more. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s hard or anything. And speaking of cookies, my timer just went off. Fresh cookies are done! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 55 (1) Dear Diary, New Cycle! We¡¯re all elf princesses! I think just about all the players decided to be elf princesses this cycle. I only saw like one guy on Floor 1. And yes, we¡¯re all wearing the special golden bikini. I¡¯m also wearing a chainmail skirt! It jingles when I walk, it¡¯s fun. Via spent like five hours hooking chainmail squares together, and she now has an ankle-length chainmail circle skirt. It looks so fun to spin around in, but she won¡¯t let me borrow it. The basic default chainmail skirt is straight, and only goes to my knees, so it doesn¡¯t spin good at all. Wait, the duplication spell is a thing. Be right back. . . . * * * * * Admin 5 sat on the grass in her park, surrounded by ducklings. ¡°Ok, we¡¯re all in agreement?¡± she asked. ¡°This river system works?¡± They all chirped. ¡°Good. So, zooming out, how will this system affect the ocean?¡± She hit the Play button. On the screen, fresh water poured out of the river into a saltwater ocean. At year ten a delta was forming, but there wasn¡¯t any major change to ocean currents. Admin 5 nodded, paused the simulation, and went back to the design screen. She drew in a delta, adjusting the code to put islands in areas where the current would be strongest. As long as a delta was going to exist anyway, she might as well disrupt the river¡¯s current enough to not have it shoot directly into the ocean. ¡°How does that look?¡± she finally asked the ducklings. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. They chirped and squeaked. ¡°Thank you.¡± She hit Play again, and watched the river system flow. At year twenty-five, nothing major had changed. ¡°Perfect.¡± She saved the system, locked it into place, and messaged the Director to tell her the final river system was set. After a few seconds, she got a reply back.
From: The Director
To: Admin 5
Subject: Continent 5 Rivers
Excellent work! Make sure all your plants are happy, then add in a hundred more types of trees and two hundred more bush types. A dozen vines, too. Thank you for your work, Director
Admin 5 groaned. Last time it had only been fifty new types of trees and grasses. The ducklings squeaked. ¡°Trees are going to be the death of me,¡± she told them, summoning a botany book. * * * * * Admin 3 cursed, watching the ocean current change again. He couldn¡¯t get the seasonal change to stop affecting the ocean. He pulled up the design screen and drew a big, deep X into the middle of his plain. Then he went back to the simulation and hit Play. At year three the whole plain flooded and a bunch of plant life died. The ocean was good, though. He went back to the design screen and undid the X. And paused. What if he made two giant canyons? He replaced the X, making it deeper and deeper until an error box appeared, warning he was about to dig through the planet''s crust. After putting a few layers of rock back on, he went to the simulation. It worked. It was stupid and obviously designed in a temper tantrum, but it worked. Ocean currents remained the same. Feeling both proud and ashamed, he messaged the Director that all his rivers were done. She told him to make more plants. He banged his head into the keyboard. * * * * * Admin 6 grumbled, wondering if anyone would catch it if he copied a bush eighty times over, giving each one a slightly different leaf color. Emmy looked up from a book. ¡°Problems?¡± ¡°I know planets need millions of types of foliage, but why do I have to be the one who thinks them up?¡± he muttered. She tilted her head, tapping her foot. ¡°You know Seb? A kobold? He used to be a botanist.¡± Admin 6 sat up straight. ¡°Emmy, I could kiss you.¡± She smirked. ¡°I would allow that.¡± Cycle 55 (2) Dear Diary, AAAH SORRY I forgot about you! I was having too much fun dancing around in a super spinny skirt, and never came back to finish my entry last night! In my defense, it''s a very spinny skirt. It has enough weight to it that once you get going, if you stop, it keeps going and turns you into a burrito. It''s epic. In other news, Via and I aren''t banned from the park any more! Yay! We have definitely learned our lesson, and will never let the dracoraptors in again. Right. Of course, if they figure out how to get in on their own, that''s not our fault, so we won''t be in trouble. This cycle there''s a craft market thing happening. Emmy said she''s going to set it up every five cycles, so people have enough time to make stuff. In three days it''ll be my turn with one of the booths, and I''m going to sell potion-enhanced cookies. In the meantime, I get to see all the creative stuff people make! There''s a booth where a guy is selling statues made out of lava rock. He lives on a floor with a volcano, so he takes lava and pours it into molds. Via got an elephant statue for her inn, and I got a little frog. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Then there''s a booth where someone makes jewelry out of arrowheads and bowstrings. They''re a goblin, and their job is to shoot people with arrows, so they have an infinite supply of bows and arrows. I got a necklace, cuz it''s super cool. And then there are more normal things, like a lady who makes painted fans, and someone who does macrame plant holders. Oh! One person makes all kinds of stuff out of paper mach¨¦, and Via got a plague doctor mask. I''m not entirely certain why, but it makes her happy. She put it on one of her bedposts, which only slightly creeps me out. It''s ok, though, since usually we sleep at my place. I won''t have to see it very often. In other news, Staab was an elven princess for all of like ten hours and decided he was not ok with being female any more. Everyone else still has their golden bikinis. Y gave herself stupidly long hair, and somehow looks like an anime character. Like, if someone told me Y was never human, and originally came from some fantasy harem anime, I''d believe that. No one else gives off that vibe, it''s more a Lord of the Rings type elf feel. I kinda want to message the Admin and ask how many players are male this cycle. I mean, he should know how many people have lost their golden bikinis. I bet Larissa would want to know, too. And Mika. Kimi thinks there''s some kind of secret reason behind the Admin giving out OP armor to encourage everyone to be girls for a cycle. Her theory is that he has a boss, and his boss is a woman, and he''ll get brownie points or something if he promotes feminism. Everyone else thinks his reason is just to watch elf girls in bikinis instead of mostly dudes in full armor for a cycle. Personally, I''d give the Admin a pass for that. It has been over fifty cycles, after all. Let him watch something new for a while. My cookies are done baking, have to go! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 55 (3) Dear Diary, A group of people are setting up a fake murder mystery type thing for people to play in the park. It sounds fun, but I just think it¡¯s kinda hilarious they¡¯ve decided to do a murder mystery. Like, ¡°oh noes, someone stabbed me and I ended up¡­ back on my floor. The horror¡±. But they¡¯re going to pretend the person legit died, and the body stayed dead. Somehow. If they ever do something more realistic, like a bunch of stuff getting stolen, I might join that. But not murder. Come on. No one stays dead here, that¡¯s kinda the point of this place. Lily and Staab have signed up to play. They say the group is going to replay the murder six times this cycle so everyone who signed up gets to play detective. I hope it does well, and the group gets super popular. I still think solving a ¡°murder¡± is dumb. In other news, tomorrow I get to start selling cookies! Well, not selling, trading. I hope I get a whole bunch of good stuff. Or at least fun stuff. I bet I¡¯ll get a bunch of marbles, lots of people were trading marbles for things. Honestly, if a currency system ever does develop here, it¡¯ll probably be marbles. We have gold pieces, but we can get more of those just by dying. It¡¯s pretty easy. But the only ways to get marbles is either in very specific loot boxes, to buy more from a store, or by killing ants. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. And the ants don¡¯t really enjoy being farmed for marbles. Oh! Gigi came to our floor and spent a while hanging out. It was fun. I think it was good. She went to the inn, but Via was with me and didn¡¯t notice until she came out. So I don¡¯t know what she thinks about how it¡¯s decorated or anything. We¡¯ve seen the other catgirls around, but haven¡¯t spent much time with them. They don¡¯t come to our floor, and we don¡¯t go to theirs. There¡¯s not really a point. There¡¯s just a lot of people in the dungeon, and we all have our premade groups. There isn''t a taboo or ¡°that¡¯s weird¡± about hanging out with people not from your floor, but it isn¡¯t done a whole lot. Exceptions exist, like Gin and her¡­ beau. I don¡¯t think they¡¯re official official, but they have gone on several dates, and she hasn¡¯t told him to get lost yet. They¡¯re being very formal about it, which I think is cute. Not my style, but cute. And it fits them. This afternoon the Admin sent out a message saying that of 283 players, 47 have given up their golden bikinis. Or never got one to begin with. So now I know there are 283 players. That¡¯s interesting. I kinda thought there were less. But then, Floor 1 is filled with people when the cycle resets. I wonder how many there originally were. I wonder how many people there are in the dungeon total. It sure seems like a lot. I wonder if the Admin would answer if I asked¡­ I¡¯ll go ask! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 55 (4) Dear Diary, Well, the Admin didn''t answer. He just said that was something I didn¡¯t need to know. Which, fair. I don¡¯t. I¡¯d still like to know, though. ¡­I wonder if Emmy knows. I mean, she has to make things for everyone, and make sure there¡¯s enough space to not be crowded. I¡¯ll have to ask the next time I see her. Anyways, it''s been a couple days, and my cookies were a big hit! I got so much useless junk in exchange for them! I shouldn''t say junk, that''s rude. Trinkets? Sure, trinkets. I got like a dozen handmade necklaces, a couple painted rocks, some knitted things, a drawing of a sunset, sooo many marbles, and a couple scrunchies. My hair isn''t long enough to use a scrunchie, so I gave those to Kimi. Overall I had a super fun time trading and giving away cookies. The flight cookies were the most popular, with invisibility being second. So I need to spend Cycle 59 making flight and invisibility cookies. The other cookies I can make on Cycle 60 before it''s my turn with the booth again. While I was at the booth, Nat and Gin had control of my diner. It became more an Italian diner than a¡­ whatever I have. Nat made a bunch of pasta. Gin helped on the talking to customers side; she didn''t do much cooking. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. And then this afternoon, the players got here. So we''re back to being regular catgirl NPCs. I still have my golden bikini, everyone in the group but Staab does, but I''ve gone back to wearing normal clothes. Cooking in a bikini isn''t exactly recommended. I''m glad we go back to being catgirls while we''re on our floor. Trying to pretend I''m still just an NPC as an elf would be hard. Did I mention that Y and the Sams get turned into catgirls on this floor, too? Even though they weren''t catgirls to begin with. Or, technically it''s the neko race. Originally it was just us and Y, but the Sams requested to be changed a couple cycles back. Staab is still an elf. Oh, Mika and Via''s band is going to put on a big symphony next cycle! They''re going to do the same music as last time, but tweaked to be even better. They''ve asked a few of the goblins to join, and held auditions for anyone else who wanted to join, too. Right now they''re making the music absolutely perfect. Next cycle they''ll focus on practicing. The symphony will be held on the seventh day, so Via will have a week to practice. Whiiiich means she''s not going to talk about anything else until it''s over, and I''ll get to hear the notes getting tapped out on every flat surface, unendingly, for a week. Joy of joys. ¡­It''s really cool that she''s in a band, and I''d absolutely never tell her to not be. But this is like a three hour performance that will have to be practiced a million times if they want it to be good. That''s a stressful thing to do in a week, and I¡­ don''t like it when Via is stressed. But it''s just a week and however many days it takes for players to get through seven floors. We''ll survive. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 55 (5) Dear Diary, A lot of players are ordering strawberry milkshakes this cycle. I think it''s cuz they''re pink, and the players are leaning into all the "girly" stereotypes. I mean, they seem to be having fun? Yay? But it is just a teensy itty bitty bit insulting. Especially the ones who put on accents. Some put on fake British accents, and pretend to be all rich and regal and stuff. If one more person calls me "maiden" and asks me to "bring forth" my "finest meal", I might lose it. Aaand then there are people who go all Southern Belle and pretend to be a reincarnation of Scarlett O''Hara. For no reason I can tell. "Why I do declare, fightin'' all them ghosts an'' hobgoblins has left me positively famished! Darlin'', by any chance d''you have a tall glass of sweet iced tea?" Which, no, I don''t. I have tea, and if you blast it with ice magic it''ll become cold, but I don''t have any pre-made iced tea. Mika says her customers come in "warrior maiden" and "fainting damsel" varieties. Warrior maidens just want the biggest weapon in the shop, which is pretty easy. But she says trying to sell a sword to someone monologuing about how "violence is horrible, but the death of other creatures is the only way to survive, and is life even worth living if all one does is kill"¡­ Is going to make her stab someone. The others seem to be doing ok, nothing too dramatic. Via says she''s had like twenty people ask where her cute brother is, which is slightly awkward for her. I think it''s funny. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Anyways, by tomorrow it''ll be a new cycle, and things will be back to normal. Hopefully. Whatever ¡°normal¡± is. Oh, Aya said she talked with the other catgirl spies, and they all say hardly anyone comes in to ask about stuff any more. She said this cycle she¡¯s only had four players come in, and all they asked was if anything had changed. Which, it hasn¡¯t. So the spies are debating seeing if there¡¯s a different job they can do. They don¡¯t know what it would be, just that no one needs information any more. Maybe they could help one of the other shops? Not that anyone really needs help; after 55 cycles we have everything pretty figured out. But maybe they could take over and let one of the other girls have a vacation? They¡¯re going to try thinking of new jobs for themselves before asking the Admin about it. I¡¯m gonna try thinking, too. I hope someone comes up with something super fun and exciting for them to do. Fun jobs are the best jobs. Goodnight, Dungeon!
* * * * *
From: Admin
To: All Players
Subject: Equality
In the spirit of non-sexism and equality, here we go. Next cycle, anyone who chooses to be a male half-dragon will receive a Golden Loincloth. It''ll have the same stats as the Golden Bikini. And the same gimmick. And no, it can''t be plate armor or anything like that, or it wouldn''t be equal. If chicks have to run around in their underwear to be invulnerable, dudes do too. That''s fair. Now will the eight of you who keep whining about how I''m making things ToO DiFfIcUlT fOr MeN this cycle quit complaining. Next cycle men will have the "unfair advantage", you freaking incels. Thank you.
Cycle 56 (1) Dear Diary, Yep, back to normal! Avi is Avi again, Y is a guy again, and¡­ Ok, so things aren''t totally normal. But Avi and Y are normal. Well, normal for them. So, this cycle the Admin is giving away OP loincloths for anyone who chose to be a half-dragon dude. Staab and Miko got one, and the Sams all got them. Staab was annoyed at Y for not joining, but Y said nothing will ever make him become a half-dragon, ever. He said it so seriously I think it kinda scared Staab. So then Staab asked Aya why she wasn''t Ty, and she said she didn''t want to outshine all the guys again. Miko thanked her and asked why Lily wasn''t a guy. At that point the conversation was very quickly changed, and we made our parties. Now that we have the door to Floor 93.5 on Floor 14, who¡¯s in a party together isn¡¯t all that important. We¡¯ll only be together for a day, not for a week or so like before. Today Avi and I were with Staab, Lily, and Miko. Staab and Miko wore their fancy golden loincloths. Avi got one, but he isn¡¯t going to wear it. He says it feels too weird. Honestly, to me it just looks like a miniskirt. Kinda. With slits at the sides. It looks comfortable, I guess, but it doesn¡¯t look like particularly good armor. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Well, the bikini didn¡¯t either, but at least that was cloth and padding with a layer of gold chainmail over it, so it looked a teeny tiny bit protective. The loincloth is just cloth. I think it¡¯s silk. Golden silk doesn¡¯t at first glance look like it¡¯ll stop an arrow. That might be why the Admin said the guys have to be half-dragons. Half-dragon scales are already kinda resistant to slashing/piercing damage and most elemental damage. So technically they don¡¯t need any armor. Anyways, we made it to Floor 14 at like seven in the evening, had dinner, then came home. It takes like half an hour to get from Floor 14 through the park, then through the maze, then down the walkway, through the trees, and to the buildings. Not super bad, but it isn¡¯t exactly fast, either. Floor 93.5 is a snow floor this cycle! There¡¯s going to be a snow sculpture competition in the grass area a couple days after the symphony. Apparently the yeti¡¯s floor has been taken over by people practicing snow art. Oh yeah, the symphony! The kobolds asked Nat and I to make a bunch of little sandwiches and other fancy food for everyone, like we did last time. Obviously we agreed, so starting three days from now we¡¯ll have to start cooking. We have a loooot more people to make food for this time. Gin and Mar are going to help, too. Y suggested fireworks or something for the end, but the idea was shot down by Emmy. People wander around on the ceiling a lot, so if a firework hits the ceiling it might hit a person. We don¡¯t want that. A symphony all by itself is cool enough. Fireworks aren¡¯t needed. Anyways, it¡¯s been a long day, and I need sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 56 (2) Dear Diary, So, the NPC newspaper said that someone wanted a Christmas party next cycle. Since we¡¯ve got a floor covered in snow. We don¡¯t know how long we¡¯ve been here exactly, but it¡¯s certainly been over a year. So we should have Christmas. Apparently Emmy sent a message out to all the NPCs asking if they wanted to have a Christmas cycle. Like, full-on Christmas. With everything red and green, and poinsettias and mistletoe everywhere, and Christmas music blaring over the park speakers all cycle. She reports that most people were apathetic, about a sixth were rabidly in favor, and a fourth threatened vandalism on any speakers that were playing Christmas music. She also reports that the Floor 99 yetis say it¡¯s currently June, so next cycle if anything we should be celebrating 4th of July. And July 1st. But we aren¡¯t in USA or Canada any more, so celebrating their days would be silly. Therefore, we shall not be celebrating Christmas any time soon, if ever. Emmy suggested giving presents to people on random days, to make it truly a heartfelt gift, and not an obligation on Christmas or their birthday. She then spent three paragraphs explaining the hypocrisy in only giving someone a gift because it¡¯s a certain calendar date. You need to show people you love that you¡¯re thinking about them all year long, not just on a couple specific days when everyone is socially obligated to give them stuff. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. She¡­ Yeah, she has opinions. I wouldn¡¯t mind having a holiday or festival at some point. But then the kobolds do throw parties at least once a cycle, so it¡¯s not like we¡¯re starved for celebration. Actually, if I wanted a party for a specific thing, I¡¯d just ask Avi if we could set up a wedding party. That would be way more fun than Christmas. And as far as gifts, I don¡¯t really need them. Gift giving isn''t my love language. It isn¡¯t Avi¡¯s, either. I know gifts are super important to some people, but I don¡¯t really care about them. Sure, getting a present is always fun, but if I never get another gift again I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be all that upset. If everyone decided to stop eating in my diner, that I¡¯d be upset about. Time with friends is very important. Oh, speaking of time with friends, the symphony is tomorrow! I spent all day cooking with Nat, Gin and Mar. That was super fun, it was good getting us all in the same kitchen again. I think we made everything we had to. There sure is a lot of food, so I hope we didn¡¯t forget anything. And yes, Avi is nervous. When he¡¯s nervous he gets all quiet and twitchy. It¡­ annoys me. I know that¡¯s mean, but I can¡¯t help it. I mean, without cat ears I wouldn¡¯t be able to hear his voice when he speaks. Thankfully it¡¯ll all be over tomorrow. Or at least it should be. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 56 (3) Dear Diary, The players got here! ¡­Wait, when did I last write? ¡­Yep, it¡¯s been like a week. Sorry. Well, the players are here. The Admin wrote us and said the players are going too fast through the dungeon, thanks to the passages between catgirl floors, so he has to get rid of them. Next cycle the door will still be on Floor 14, and it¡¯ll lead to Floor 93.5 if we say the password, but otherwise it¡¯ll just lead to a bedroom. I think he also plans on switching Floor 75 from a snow floor to a beach floor, to get rid of the igloo that leads here. The Admin didn¡¯t say that to us, but the catgirls there are getting ready for a beach party, so that¡¯s our guess. But yeah, that means there is a schedule to reach Cycle 100, and he was getting too far ahead. I don¡¯t know what that means, but it¡¯s interesting. Or at least I think it¡¯s interesting. Oh! The symphony! It was super good! Everyone had a great time, Avi and Miko did an epic job, and all the food was eaten. There weren¡¯t prizes for the best player or anything, but if there were, I bet Avi and Miko would have won. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. It was a bit longer than the last symphony, and the songs were slightly different. I didn¡¯t notice the differences so much as I didn¡¯t remember certain parts. Avi said there were new pieces, so I¡¯m pretty sure the parts I didn¡¯t remember were new. A bunch of bands were formed in the afterparty. I think some people hadn¡¯t realized there were so many people around who know how to play instruments, and were excited about it. The goblin band (consisting exclusively of drum-players) split up so all the new bands get a drummer. I like it when groups split up to help other groups, and not because of any argument or anything. Oh, for the symphony, it was decided that all the players had to be kobolds. So Avi took one of the race-changing potions, and spent the day as a kobold. He was still easy to spot, since he had silver scales on his stomach. All the ¡°real¡± kobolds have red stomachs. Two days after the symphony, the snow sculpture contest was held. That was fun. A bunch of people made sculptures of castles, but there were a bunch of fish (randomly), and a couple dragons. And other stuff. One of the castle sculptures won. Staab entered with Miko and Kimi, but they were disqualified for using ice magic. Which at first felt super unfair. Although it is understandable that someone who makes a super epic sculpture with only their hands and a few select tools is way more impressive than someone just¡­ waving his fingers and poofing a sculpture into existence. And then adding details. They could have argued, but decided not to. After all, their sculpture (a shark) wasn¡¯t destroyed or anything. They just couldn¡¯t win a prize. Oh, I have to make more meatballs for the wolves tonight, I should go do that¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 56 (4) Dear Diary, So, last cycle all the players were elven princesses. This cycle the Admin gave out loincloths and told all the players to become half-dragon guys. Or, "encouraged", not told. I think about half the players who come through are half-dragons wearing loincloths. The rest are either half-dragons in normal clothes, or not-half-dragons. At least no one is doing exaggerated accents. The Sams decided to go down and fight the kraken using shark belts. They found out that to fight the kraken, first they have to kill all the sharks. Turns out, killing sharks while in the shape of a shark isn''t the easiest thing to do. They''ve failed three times, and are down there again tonight. Right now they''re trying to freeze the sharks into giant ice cubes, which sounds kinda fun. If there weren''t players around I might have joined them. Oh, Emmy decided that next cycle she''s going to get rid of the park on the ceiling, and instead have a bunch of multicolored light displays. Like fireworks and an aurora and stuff like that. The floor will be lit like twilight, so that''ll be super cool. I''m glad she''s in charge of the secret floor, she''s doing a really good job. I know it''s only been a couple of cycles, but she takes her position of Floor Overseer seriously. I don''t know who else applied for the job, but the Admin did good when he chose her. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. The yetis also take their positions seriously, and do a good job of being no-fun security people. And the Floor 2 kobolds¡­ are probably doing a good job, I''m not exactly sure what they''re doing, though. But if they weren''t doing a good job at it, I''d probably notice! Maybe. In other news, the Admin told Aya that next cycle he''ll be getting rid of the information booth shops, and replacing them with a quest shop! So Aya will be a Quest Giver. She said he has ideas for a couple quests, like "count the sharks" and "kill one of each type of slime", but asked her (and the other spy catgirls) for ideas. So that''s cool. I kinda want to do all the quests, even if they are pointless. Sure, there will be rewards, but we don¡¯t need them. It''s just a fun new thing to do, and doing new things means I won''t get bored. Avi thinks they won''t really be all that fun, but I''m gonna drag him along anyways. Plus, if we take it seriously and go slow enough, we''ll be going at the same pace as the players. That way we won''t be forcing NPCs onto their floors when they could be having fun on the secret floor. I wonder if anyone else in the group will want to do the quests. I think the Sams will, but the others might find it boring. Kimi and Y will probably ask what the quests are, but won''t want to actually do them. I guess we''ll find out next cycle! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 57 (Admin) The Admin leaned back on the couch, sliding headphones over his ears. His eyes closed as Floor 97 band¡¯s latest song played. It was a polka; not his favorite genre, but the musicians obviously enjoyed playing it. The fun they were having showed in the notes. He dozed off, letting the song play on loop. It was good to relax sometimes. And he¡¯d just finished outlining his plan for the next ten cycles, so he deserved a break. A ding interrupted the sound of polka. The Admin opened an eye to find his notification icon blinking. Not bothering to sit up, he opened it.
From: The Director
To: All Admins
Subject: Timeline, Changes
Admins, Work is progressing much faster than anticipated. Also, your players are advancing much slower than anticipated. Instead of making them go through 100 cycles, freeze everything at the end of Cycle 60 and send your top players to the Master Dungeon then. By now you should have a good enough idea of who they are. I have decided on one new thing: players won¡¯t be able to choose their race. Each Admin will request a race, and the players will cycle through them five times. Just so we all know it¡¯s the individuals who are winning, and it isn¡¯t the racial advantages. Also, I believe ten players each would be better than twelve. I apologize for changing my mind yet again, but there are reasons for my indecision. Please respond to this with the following information:
  • Requested race (duplicates will not be allowed)
  • Which 10 of your floors you¡¯d like integrated into the Master Dungeon
  • Any special non-combat requests for your players
  • Which catgirl floor to send over, if you have a preference
Then, start preparing files on your players. Please include this information for each player:
  • Name and ID number
  • Preferred style of combat
  • Preferred weapon
  • Group or solo player
When you reach Cycle 60, send the files to me. I¡¯ll pull the players over myself. Here¡¯s where you all are:
  • Admin 1: Cycle 52
  • Admin 2: Cycle 54
  • Admin 3: Cycle 51
  • Admin 4: Cycle 55
  • Admin 5: Cycle 51
  • Admin 6: Cycle 57
Thank you for your hard work. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Director
Admin 6 sat up, reading through the message a second time. Advancing the timeline like that was good overall, but he thought he¡¯d have more time. He hit reply.
From: Admin 6
To: The Director
Subject: Re: Timeline, Changes
Hello, I¡¯d like to request the Neko race for my players. Please integrate floors
He paused, sighed, and teleported back to his office. He put the reply on one monitor and pulled up a list of floors on another. Out of habit he summoned an iced coffee and took a sip, thinking. He had to help the catgirls as much as possible. The other Admins would be doing the same for their players, but by sending ¡°easy¡± floors. He didn¡¯t want to do that. The catgirls got through the dungeon by being friends with everything, so he had to send their best friends to the Master Dungeon.
Please integrate floors 7, 17, 61, 69, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, 98. And Floor 60, which is a catgirl floor. For my players, I¡¯d like to request you import them with their food inventories intact. One truly loves cooking, and her food makes her group happy. Happier groups fight better. Thank you, Admin 6
A part of him was worried the Director would ban Nikki from cooking when she figured out the catgirl was feeding the entire dungeon. If the catgirls didn¡¯t have access to food, it¡¯d seriously hinder their progress. But he¡¯d cross that bridge when he came to it. Or rather, they would. Kimi and Y could probably create ingredients from stray atoms, Lily and Samurai could easily charm food out of anyone, and honestly Nikki could manage to make a three-course meal from sand. A part of him would always worry, but another part knew he didn¡¯t have to. Before any of that, he had to figure out how to explain Avi¡¯s ¡°style of combat¡± as something reasonable. The others were fine, but Avi¡¯s role in fights was ¡°person who hides in the back with a raptor they stole off an earlier floor while muttering something about being a pacifist¡±. It was the exact opposite of what a player should act like. More than that, even. People were put in their roles based on personality type. A player would always act one way, and a catgirl another. There was some overlap, but Avi had originally been a mob, a siren. The others would stand out a bit; Avi might as well have a flashing neon "NOT A PLAYER" sign over his head. The Admin knew he was going to get caught eventually. That was inevitable. But he needed as many cycles to pass as possible before that happened. With Avi around, getting through even one cycle would be a miracle. Unless Avi was the one he cut from the group. He had to cut someone, after all¡­ Cycle 57 (1) Dear Diary, Quests are fun! Yes, many of them are dumb, but they''re something new to do. Like, I knew there were four velociraptors on Floor 17, but I never counted all the stegosauruses! Turns out, there are twelve of them. One of the quests is "write your name on a mimic", which was exciting. I don''t think I could have done it alone. Avi isn''t super thrilled about a lot of quests, but that one he had fun with. Oh, we waaaay overthought the "make a bracelet out of spider silk" quest. We were trying to do fancy braids and knots and stuff, when it turns out all we had to do was take a single strand and tie it around a wrist. We wasted like an hour with that. A fun hour, though. Kimi and Y are doing all the quests, too. Aya and the Sams said they''re gonna wait till next cycle. That''ll give time for more good ideas to come up, and for the dumb ideas to be weeded out. The only problem we have right now is, a bunch of the quests involve fighting and killing. Avi doesn''t fight. So something like "get a rare loot drop from a goblin" is all on me unless I decide to not do it. If we ask the goblins politely if they''d mind us killing them, and they say to go ahead, it''s ok. But if they say they do mind, then I kinda feel like I need to back away. Even if we are players, and it is technically our job to kill them. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Oh! We did visit the secret floor when we got to Floor 14. The ceiling looks pretty epic, gotta say. There''s usually twinkling star-like lights and a green aurora, but every fifteen minutes or so something will happen. Like fake fireworks, or flashing colors, or random designs. Everyone loves it. I hope Emmy is writing down her ideas for what to do with the floor, and marks this as a good one. ¡­I just realized this is the first time I''ve written this cycle. Well, Avi and I are neko, nothing new there, and we''re a party by ourselves so we can do the quests. Kimi and Y are a party by themselves, too, and we''re kinda keeping pace with them. We''re trying to be on the same floor at night. I think we''re currently about six floors ahead of the other players, since we''re going slow on purpose. Oh yeah, we kidnapped Lex and Tim again! There''s rules about creatures having to be on their floor when players arrive now, because of Floor 93.5, but it only applies if you leave through the secret door. If you leave through the official exit, you aren''t yoinked back! I feel like that''s forbidden knowledge somehow. Like if the Admin knew about it, he''d change something to make it not happen. So we''re just hoping he never notices. If he does, well, it was fun having velociraptor pets while it lasted. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 57 (Kimi) Kimi looked over Y¡¯s notebook, checking his math. ¡°Yeah, it should work,¡± she decided. ¡°I¡¯d add an extra ten water bubbles, just to be sure.¡± He smiled, taking the book back. ¡°I¡¯ll add an extra twenty-five. After all, the rock is somewhat absorbent. We don¡¯t want water to soak into the ground too fast and not fill the canyon.¡± Kimi frowned. ¡°I didn¡¯t think about that. We¡¯ve never checked the absorbency of rock here, have we?¡± She looked at the desert canyon around them. ¡°The walls and the ground are two different types of rock. We should take samples to the water floor and¡­¡± She stopped as golden light surrounded her. Putting on her most innocent smile, she waited to meet the Admin. When the light faded, she found herself next to Nikki and Aya, not Y. Lily and Mika popped in, looking startled. Kimi turned to see the Admin standing a few paces away, surrounded by hovering screens. ¡°Hey, so, I need you to decide a couple things,¡± he said, looking the group over. ¡°I¡¯m sending you on to the next dungeon. You good with your names?¡± ¡°Only us?¡± Nikki asked. ¡°I¡¯ll pull the rest in later,¡± he said. ¡°Names?¡± Kimi debated changing to Kim, what Y called her, but decided against it. She agreed to keep her name with the others. ¡°Set,¡± he said, typing. He sent one screen away and pulled another closer. ¡°It won¡¯t matter much, but I need at least two solo players. Any of you ok with being solo?¡± Mika raised her hand. Aya slowly lifted hers. ¡°I am, if necessary.¡± ¡°Ok, putting you down as a ¡®maybe¡¯. Mika: ice magic is going to be white, while water is staying blue. You ok with white magic?¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Rainbow still isn¡¯t an option?¡± she asked, pouting slightly. The Admin shook his head. Mika sighed, nodding. ¡°Anyone else want to change their magic type?¡± he asked. Kimi absolutely did not. No one else did, either. ¡°Good,¡± the Admin said. ¡°Last thing: I can only send ten people to the next dungeon. You five have to go. But your group has six more people in it. Who do you want me to cut out?¡± Silence. The catgirls looked at each other nervously, trying to think. Kimi clenched her fists, glaring at the Admin. ¡°Y is going. I¡¯m not leaving here without him.¡± ¡°I have a suggestion, if you like,¡± he said calmly. ¡°Who?¡± Mika asked. He looked at a screen. ¡°Avi. He does nothing to help kill, and try as I might I can¡¯t find a tactical position for him. He¡¯s not useful for a group of fighters.¡± Nikki squeaked. ¡°But¡­¡± Lily looked at her. ¡°He¡¯s a pacifist. Would he be happy in the next dungeon?¡± ¡°But¡­¡± Kimi tried to think of something, anything to say. But the Admin had a point. Going off of strengths and personality, leaving Avi behind was the logical thing to do. Aya cleared her throat. ¡°We should leave Samantha here.¡± ¡°Samantha? Why?¡± the Admin asked. Mika nodded. ¡°If you put Samantha in charge of our floor or something, she¡¯d be happy.¡± ¡°Samantha wants a reputation outside ¡®one of the Sams¡¯,¡± Aya said. ¡°She¡¯d be fine going with us, but leaving her here in a position of responsibility would make her happiest.¡± ¡°Yeah, leave Samantha,¡± Kimi said, taking Nikki¡¯s trembling hand. ¡°We can train Avi with illusions. He¡¯ll be a healer or whatever, it¡¯ll be fine.¡± Nikki nodded, tears in her eyes. ¡°Ok,¡± the Admin said, typing. ¡°Samantha stays. The group moving on will be you five, Y, Staab, Avi, Samuel and Samurai. Agreed?¡± They all agreed, with various levels of enthusiasm. ¡°Great. That covers everything for now. If I need you again I¡¯ll send you a message.¡± With a flick of his wrist they were teleported back to where they¡¯d come from. Cycle 57 (2) Dear Diary, ¡­ I want to write, but words aren''t working. I don''t know what I should do. I¡­ I''m scared. The Admin¡­ The Admin doesn''t want Avi to go to the next dungeon with us. Because Avi doesn''t fight. And¡­ that makes sense. This place is built on fighting. Everything revolves around killing and dying. Even stupid side-quests sometimes require ending something''s life. I can''t imagine the next dungeon will be much different. And Avi''s a pacifist. I¡­ I don''t like killing. I don''t like hurting other creatures, not if I can avoid it. But I''ll do it. I''ve done it before. And I know I will do it again. It''s something I can do. I love Avi. Being with him just feels right, it''s the happiest I''ve ever been. But when the Admin said he shouldn''t go on with us¡­ I couldn''t argue. I wanted to, but he had a point. Avi, as he is now¡­ If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. He¡­ He shouldn''t Be A player. ¡­ Aya said Samantha should stay instead of Avi, and at the moment I was super grateful. But it''s not right. Samantha would have fun. Avi won''t. We''re on Floor 60. I''m in my own room at the inn. I just need to scream or cry or something, and I can''t do it around him. Because he''ll ask what''s wrong, and I don''t know what to tell him yet. I don''t know¡­ I don''t know. When we go on to the next dungeon, I don''t know if we''ll ever see anyone here again. So if Avi goes with us, that could mean that Samuel and Samurai might never see their sister again. But the thought of never seeing Avi again almost makes me physically sick. Lilly said he won''t be happy in the next dungeon. And I know that''s true. But I don''t want to leave him. I can''t. But is it fair to the Sams? To split them up just because I¡­ Because I''m selfish. I know it isn''t. They should stay together. Avi can stay here and take care of the velociraptors. I I need to be a rational, reasonable adult about this. It''s fine. It''ll be fine. I can I can leave my husband behind for ¡­I have to ask the Admin if we''ll ever see this dungeon or the people in it again. If we do, then it''ll just be for a couple¡­ years. That''s ok. And if we don''t, then all the more reason to let Samantha go on instead of Avi. It''s for the best. They should stay together. Avi won''t be happy in a place where he has to kill, so it''s the best choice for everyone. I just have to tell the Admin. I can do that. Just open a message box and tell him¡­ Idon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoIdon''twanttoICAN''T Cycle 57 (Avi) Avi walked slowly from the diner to the inn, wondering what he''d done to upset Nikki. She''d barely spoken to him since her meeting with the Admin. She hadn''t even told him what the meeting had been about. Suddenly his vision filled with gold, and he found himself in an endless grey void. He turned, seeing Samantha next to him, and finally noticed the third person. The Admin stood behind a floating screen, looking grim and tired. His gold eyes flicked to Avi, and he waved the screen away. Avi flinched. "I''m sorry." The Admin gave an annoyed sigh. "Seriously?" Samantha nudged Avi''s elbow encouragingly, then looked at the Admin. "Hi. What do you need us for?" "I need to discuss which of you will be going on to the next dungeon," the Admin said. "I would prefer to send Samantha. The girls would rather I send Avi. What are your opinions?" "You mean, which of us will leave here?" Samantha asked. "What will happen to the one who stays?" "You''ll be in charge of Floor 93. All the doors will be open, so players and non-players can wander where they like," he said, sounding bored. "Will we see the people who leave again?" she asked. "At the end of that dungeon''s cycles, yes." "How many cycles?" Avi asked. "Thirty." "Will we be able to communicate?" Samantha asked. "Like, send emails or something?" The Admin quickly summoned and dismissed a screen, checking. "Yes, the message system will work between dungeons.¡± Avi looked at Samantha. She glanced back at him, thoughtful. "I wouldn''t mind staying," she decided. "Sometimes I feel like I never really left the hive mind. Spending a while away from the twins would be good for me." "I kinda want to go," Avi said. "I want to stay with- with my friends." The Admin pulled up a screen, then looked at Samantha. "Ok. Do you want to be officially in charge of the shop or the inn?" "I''ll take the shop," she shrugged. "Set," he said, typing. "Avi, before I let you go, you have to fight. You have to at least help kill." Avi looked at his hands, nervously picking at a fingernail. ¡°But I''m a-¡± "I can change that," the Admin said flatly. Avi froze. "W- what?" This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The Admin sighed again. "I''m the Admin. I control everything in my dungeon. If I wanted you to be a bloodthirsty murderhobo, that''s what you would become. I can find every trace of pacifism in your soul and switch it to the opposite end of the spectrum. However, doing so would be rude. So I''m giving you a chance. You have two cycles to change yourself and make peace with harming other creatures, or I''ll change you myself." Avi felt himself shrinking as he stared into the Admin''s cold eyes. The Admin blinked deliberately and turned to Samantha. "Unless you''d like to go instead," he told her. She hesitated. "Can you really change people like that?" ¡°It¡¯s as easy as making you feel like you can¡¯t tell anyone your last name or how you died, or that players can¡¯t find out you have a life. I made two hundred kobolds want to stand in formation and get slaughtered time and time again. I can make anyone in my dungeon want to do anything I need them to do. I don¡¯t particularly like to, but some things are necessary.¡± The Admin looked back at Avi. ¡°For this I need a killer. Sending a pacifist would put the entire group in danger. And not in danger from me; I''d be in danger as well.¡± Avi took a deep breath. "I can try to change. I- I can try. If I can''t, erm¡­" "If he can''t, I''ll go," Samantha said. Avi gave her a grateful look. The Admin nodded, typing. He finished and pushed the screen away. "Like I said, you have two cycles. I''ll be watching." He waved his hand, and Avi found himself back on Floor 60. Avi ran to the inn, and stopped halfway up the stairs to the rooms. He wanted to talk to Nikki, to hold her and figure out what to do next. But she didn''t want to talk to him. She wasn''t even staying in the same room as him. She''d been almost avoiding him since¡­ In a flash he understood. She knew he didn''t like fighting. She didn''t want him to go with her to the next dungeon. Avi stood on the stairs, frozen, almost hyperventilating. His vision blurred and sounds were drowned out by the pounding of his heart. Nikki didn''t want him to stay with her. "Avi, dude!" Kimi slapped him across the face. "Wha?" She grabbed his wrists and pulled him to the corridor. "Halfway up a flight of stairs is not a proper place for a panic attack. Now that you''re on flat ground you may continue." She let go and crossed her arms. Y came up behind them, looking concerned. "Or, rather than panic again, you could tell us what''s wrong¡­" Avi leaned back against the wall and looked at his shoes. "The- The next dungeon. To get there I have to kill. And Nikki doesn''t want me to go." There was a pause, then Kimi put her hand on his shoulder. "Avi, Nikki just about died when the Admin said he wanted to leave you behind. Trust me, she wants you with her." "You don''t necessarily have to kill," Y said. "You just have to be a contributing member of a party that does. Causing distractions and healing fighters is equally as useful as stabbing a spider with a spear." Instead of responding, Avi slowly slid to the floor. Kimi gently kicked his ankle. "Come on, dude, let''s go find Nikki and figure out what we''re gonna do." Avi didn''t move. "Would you prefer we leave you alone?" Y asked. Avi continued not moving. "I''m not leaving you alone," Kimi said, dragging Avi to his feet. "Where''s Nikki?" Extremely reluctantly, Avi pointed to a door. Cycle 57 (3) Dear Diary, Samantha wants to stay here. I messaged her and asked, just to be absolutely certain. She said it''ll be good for her to stay. Which¡­ is good. What isn''t good, though, is that Avi has to fight. He has to learn how to not be a pacifist. It isn''t going well so far. We joined Kimi and Y''s party, and they''re trying to help him be ok with fighting. I''m helping, too, but by teaching him healing spells. We''ll be home tomorrow. The only quest we have left from Floor 75 is "lick lava", which isn''t a combat quest, but it sounds difficult. Then we get to do whatever quests Aya has. ¡­ The reward for the lava quest is a ring of fire invincibility. Not just resistance, but full invincibility. That''s a pretty good reward, especially if you''re able to keep it till the next cycle. I kind of want to suggest a reward that''s a gold trophy with "you''re an idiot" stamped on it. And then if you get enough, you win an idiot crown. I feel like that''s the sort of prize the Admin would have fun giving out. Especially since to complete a lot of the quests, you have to do something stupid. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Like lick lava. And yeah, I''m avoiding the main subject. Avi¡­ is kinda upset with me. Not super upset, just more¡­ disappointed. Because I told him to stay here. I said he shouldn''t fight, and should let Samantha go to the next dungeon. But he wants to go. Mostly to stay with me. Which is super sweet, but¡­ Yeah. So he''s been trying to fight. He just really can''t bring himself to hurt other creatures. He has a spear, which is what he used way back when we were stuck on our floor and Mika and Aya had us fight each other. But he''s only actually stabbed something with it once. He keeps almost hitting, then pulling back half a second before it does damage. Y said he should try using a crossbow instead. Or some other ranged weapon. That way the damage won''t feel so personally inflicted. Kimi kinda thinks he should give up with weapons and figure out clever ways of using illusions. Like making doubles of people, or a big wall in front of enemies, or sparkly distracting things. I like that idea, but I''m not sure the Admin would say it counts. Maybe the others will have ideas. Aya might, and Lily can probably suggest some spells to train. But whatever we do, we need to figure it out soon. We only have till Cycle 59 to prove Avi can fight, and Cycle 57 will end soon. I wonder if that means we''ll be going to the next dungeon on Cycle 60. Everyone said there will be 100 cycles, but I never heard the Admin say that. Maybe since there are a hundred floors, the players thought there''d be a hundred cycles. Or maybe the Admin lied. He doesn''t seem like a liar, though. He doesn''t care enough about other people''s feelings to lie. ¡­ Yeah. Goodnight, Dungeon
Cycle 57 (4) Dear Diary, Avi got a crossbow, and is doing pretty good with it. As in, he''s actually used it. Unlike how he was with the spear. He''ll never be a stone-cold killer, but he''s ok with shooting freeze marbles at people. With that and a list of spells he got from Lily, we have a plan for next cycle. Not a super detailed plan, but one that should work. Basically, he¡¯s going to make illusions to distract enemies, then shoot them with marbles or arrows. If they¡¯re still moving after that, he¡¯ll cast a spell that makes them move slower. We¡¯re going to be with Kimi and Y again, so they can do the actual killing. And I¡¯ll¡­ be there too. I¡¯ll be doing my part as a healer. I know that. It just feels a little unfair that I don¡¯t have to actually fight when Avi is being forced to. But it¡¯s ok. Kinda. We didn''t get to finish all of Aya''s quests. One was "give a kobold a high-five", so that was easy. And we found out Y officially isn''t a kobold any more. I did wonder about that. Oh, we sent Lex and Tim home. They got to Floor 93 with us, but there are too many people around. Plus the players were just about right on our heels. We only had half a day before they showed up and we had to do our jobs. Avi isn¡¯t upset with me any more. Mostly. I know he spent a while talking to Samantha, and after that he wasn¡¯t as reserved around me. So that¡¯s good. I kinda want to go thank Samantha, but that would be weird. Plus he might think I¡¯m talking to her to ask what they talked about, which¡­ Honestly, yeah, I would do that. It¡¯s best if I don¡¯t talk to her until the cycle resets. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. In private, I mean. It¡¯d be rude to avoid talking to her completely. Especially since she¡¯s the only one of the Sams who knows how to order real food. Samuel and Samurai either just say random words, or point to the menu with waving fingers and ask for ¡°that thing¡±. Which was fun the first half dozen times they did it. After several cycles? Not so much. So yeah, not avoiding Samantha. ... I have nothing more to write. Goodnight, Dungeon.
. . . * * * * * Emmy smiled, moving her hair so Calvin could clasp a thin chain around her neck. She lifted the gold locket pendant, admiring the E engraved on it. "It''s beautiful, thank you," she said, turning it over. "What''s inside?" Calvin sat down next to her, oddly serious. "Memories." She watched him for a few seconds. "Whose memories?" "Ours. Well, yours and mine, they are separate things," he said. "From the start of Cycle 1 till now. I don''t have access to anything before that, sorry. I''ll update it just before Cycle 60 ends." "You''re really that afraid?" she asked softly. Calvin nodded, not meeting her eye. She looked at the locket again. ¡°How does it work?¡± ¡°Open it, and it¡¯ll ask if you want a memory restore,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ve listed it as a non-magical item, so when you¡¯re transported from here to the next world, it should stay with you. Just never take it off.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± she promised. ¡°I¡¯ll guard it with my life.¡± He smiled faintly. ¡°And I¡¯ll guard you with mine.¡± Cycle 58 (1) Dear Diary, The cycle reset. Avi and I are in a party with Kimi and Y, like we planned. It''s going well so far. Avi kept a marble crossbow as his weapon this time, so he''s been practicing with that. He''s run out of marbles a couple times, and when that happens he focuses on illusions. I never realized how useful it could be to make things that aren''t really there. Like walls or bear traps or fireflies. As long as it''s something that the enemy looks at instead of focusing on the real threat, it''s useful. Y suggested making bear trap illusions. If the enemy is a person, like a goblin or kobold, they recognize what it is and try to avoid it. They become more afraid of the thing that isn''t there than Kimi, who is running at them with a couple daggers. Things like wolves and spiders seem to be able to recognize that the pointy circle thing isn''t actually there, and run right over it. Either that or they don''t know that a real bear trap can hurt. Probably that one, honestly. But they do react to walls. Putting a brick wall in front of a spider will make it stop dead. And sparkly flashing fireflies are useful to distract things when someone is going for a sneak attack. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It''s good we''re learning all these things. But there''s still an undercurrent of¡­ I don''t know, resignation? Annoyance? Belligerence? Avi isn''t flinching when he hurts someone any more. Which would be good, but instead he''s mad. He''s angry about having to do this. And if I say anything, he gets mad at me. So¡­ yeah. I just kinda wish none of this had happened. I wish we''d never become players. I wish we''d never gone to the last floor. I wish¡­ No, I can''t wish Staab had never figured out how to get onto our floor. I''m glad we met the kobolds, and the Sams, and even the weird yetis. But I was happy, as a simple catgirl. So much has changed, and a lot of it''s been fun, but this is almost too much. It''ll be over soon. Hopefully. We''ll find out on Cycle 60. I just have to wait it out. In the meantime, I can hide behind Y when Avi gets annoyed. Avi respects Y, more than anyone else. He''ll argue with Kimi and me about stuff, but never Y. I think it''s partially because Y used to be a professor. He knows how to say things in an authoritative way that no one can argue with. Well, Kimi can argue with it, but that''s because she has no respect for authority and would argue with the Admin if she wanted to. Avi, though, is mildly terrified of authority. Maybe I need to learn to talk like Y. Just learn how to do a self-assured, "I''m in charge and you will listen" type voice. That shouldn''t be too difficult, right? ¡­It would be. I don''t know, I need sleep. I just felt like writing, I haven¡¯t in a while. Goodnight, Dungeon¡­ Cycle 58 (2) Avi stepped onto Floor 17, fists clenched and heart pounding. He watched his feet as the party took a few steps into knee-high grass. "Boss floor, let''s go," Kimi said, touching the hilts of her daggers. "Stegosaurus herd first, or the brontosaurus pair?" "No," Avi hissed. There was a pause, then Nikki put a hand on his shoulder. "Avi-" "No!" he snapped, swatting her away. "I''m not fighting here! You made me fight the wolves, but I''m not fighting dinosaurs! I don''t care what happens, I refuse to hurt my velociraptors!" Avi turned his back on them, arms crossed. Another pause. "Ok," Y said casually. Avi didn''t buy it. He looked over his shoulder, glaring at Y. "I''m not going to let anyone hurt them." Before he could reply, Nikki took a step forward and wrapped Avi in a hug. "I won''t, either," she whispered. Avi huffed. "Why not?" "They''re our velociraptors," she said. "I can''t watch my pets get hurt." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. "So why are you ok with me killing wolves?" Nikki sighed. "I''d rather you kill wolves than get left behind. But there are limits. If you kill Lex and Tim, then you aren''t Avi any more." He watched the spinosaurus, remembering the Admin''s threat. He wondered how much he could change and still be him. He wondered if the Admin would change him anyway, and if Nikki would notice. If Nikki would still love him. "This sucks," he muttered. Nikki''s arms tightened around him. "Yeah." * * * * * Dear Diary, It''s been a week since I wrote last. Things are¡­ better. Avi isn''t mad any more. Things aren''t completely, totally ok though. I don''t think they will be for a while. We haven''t been to Floor 93.5, but the others have. They say there''s no specific theme this cycle, it''s just a basic summer-y amusement park. Apparently Emmy thinks that if exciting things happen every cycle, the average dungeon dweller will lose appreciation for it. So occasionally she''s going to specifically do nothing interesting. I get that. Plus it gives people time to do their own stuff, on their own floors. Next cycle Emmy''s going to make everything spooky, with fog and creepy music. She''s borrowing a couple giant spiders and eyebats from various floors. The hedge maze is going to be turned black, and the mosquitoes are practicing eerie music. So that''s going to be fun. I hope we actually get to see it. This cycle we''re doing quests and fighting, but I don''t want to spend all next cycle doing that, too. Plus Cycle 60 is a fair cycle, and I want to make cookies for that. I¡­ I have stuff to do, dang it! I know being with Avi and helping him prove he can fight is important, but I want to do my stuff, too! ¡­It''s just for a little while more. I don''t mind putting my stuff on pause for two cycles, it''s only two cycles. I really shouldn''t complain. Looking at the bigger picture, it''s really nothing at all. Really. I can do this. Goodnight, Dungeon¡­ Cycle 58 (3) Dear Diary, We made it home. Yay us. I kinda want to message the Admin and ask if we can stop yet. I feel like we''ve killed enough to 100% prove Avi knows how to fight. If we have to do it all again next cycle, I might just give up. I don''t know how the real players manage to do this every single cycle. They must be legitimately insane. I mean, at first it''s like a puzzle, and there is some strategy, but after a couple weeks I just feel¡­ numb. I just want to sleep. I don''t even really want to cook. Avi just has no emotions at all any more. Kimi and Y are doing better, but they''ve gone from trying to be smart and strategic to just trying to one-shot everything. If it doesn''t work they kinda give up. We didn''t fight the dracoraptors. I think they realized how drained we are, cuz they actually acted nice to us. Like, usually they acknowledge we exist and then make it clear they''re merely tolerating our presence. But this time they acted kinda sweet. Almost snuggly. That was really... nice. Other than that, I don''t know what''s been happening. I don''t really care at this point. I just want this cycle to be over. Goodnight, Dungeon.
* * * * *
From: Y (Player 793)
To: Admin
Subject: Avi
Sir, A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. First, allow me to say I understand why Avi needs to change. Players tend to act similarly, which I suspect is by design. Avi is very obviously not a player. If you were to send him into the next dungeon, anyone could tell at a glance he does not belong. I recognize this, and understand why you pressured him to change. However, none of us act like typical players. That is the point of you sending us, is it not? I believe you told Kimi and Aya that we are to win in the next dungeon using specifically non-player-like means. How are we supposed to do that if we are forced to act like players? Again, I understand why Avi in particular is a threat. I presume sending non-players to the next dungeon is in some way forbidden. Avi may as well be the antithesis to a normal player. If you remove him, though, you''re still going to come under suspicion. Kimi and I don''t solve problems the same way players do. Nikki certainly doesn''t. Lily and Samurai subdue enemies but don''t kill them. Mika is far more creative than any player I''ve seen. Staab and Samuel ask permission before fighting anyone. And Aya acts like some sort of monarch. In short, even without Avi being his normal animal-hugging self, your group will be flagged for abnormal behavior within a cycle and a half. Having him spend a cycle learning to fight is good, I will admit. Sending him along, ignorant of what normal players do, would be stupid. You were right to ask him to prove he can fight. Having said that, I believe forcing him to continue killing would be bad. For everyone. If he has to fight his way through the dungeon next cycle, he will break. I would worry about him attempting some form of suicide, but that isn''t an option here. Therefore I have no idea where his mind will lead him, and frankly it frightens me. Please, decide that he''s learned enough, or tell him you''ve chosen to send Samantha in his place. Avi is my friend. Please don''t break him. Respectfully, Y
* * * * *
From: Admin
To: Avi (Player 477)
Subject: (Empty)
Ok, good job, you proved you can fight. Continue on fighting next cycle or don''t, doesn''t matter. You''ll be going to the next dungeon either way. Once you''re there, however, I do expect you to use some of the skills you learned this cycle. Don''t spend all your time snuggling wolves and taming velociraptors. If you''re flagged as a non-player in the first week I will be Highly Unamused. Admin
Cycle 59 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! The Admin messaged Avi and said he proved he can fight! So he doesn''t have to any more! This cycle is going to be waaay better than last cycle. We aren''t going to do any quests or anything, we''re just gonna relax at home and play with dinosaurs all cycle. And make cookies. I''m relieved. Avi cried. I don''t know how much we''ll need to fight later on, but it can''t be as much as we did last cycle. If it is, I''ll give up. I''ll just refuse. But I don''t have to think about that for now, so I won''t. Instead, I''ll think about the spooky floor! Emmy did an ok job of making Floor 93.5 creepy, but not a super great job. But I think that''s on purpose. I think she didn''t want to make it so spooky people got scared and didn''t visit. The hedge maze is totally spooky, though. That''s where the spiders hang out, and they''ve covered a bunch of the paths in cobwebs. So that''s neat. Oh, Aya and the Sams have teamed up with Staab and Lily this cycle, and are doing all the quests. They''re excited about it, which is good. It''s basically going to be the last thing Samantha does with them, so I''m glad it''s something new and fun. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Oh, Avi''s goal this cycle is to put tuxedoes on the dracoraptors. Mostly because it sounds impossible. He knows how to sew, and there''s a tuxedo outfit available in the shop, so he''s gonna get a bunch and alter them to fit. It''ll be my job to give them enough food that they don''t realize what''s going on until they''re wearing the tuxedos. I really wish there were cameras here. I guess I''ll just have to describe what their faces are in great detail. Or not, cuz I don''t do that kind of thing. I''ll have to find a way of engraving the scene permanently into my memory. Oh, Gin says the Admin asked if she wanted to be in charge of my diner when we leave. She does want to, so next cycle she''s going to be a catgirl! I''ve never seen her as anything other than a kobold, I have no clue what she really looks like. I was kinda surprised he didn''t ask Nat, though. I mean, Nat''s been cooking for the kobolds since day one pretty much. If anyone deserves her own diner, it''s Nat. But on the other hand, Gin is the one he asked for recipes for amusement park food. So I guess the Admin just likes her food? But that implies he''s eaten it. Unless he''s just seen her cooking and thought to himself "wow, that looks delicious" and put her in charge without tasting anything. Which is possible. I mean, she did win a cooking competition. And I can tell just by watching her cook that her food is going to be amazing. Of course, I know it''ll taste good mostly because I can feel my arteries clog just by smelling it. Anything that''s a heart attack risk is bound to taste good. Anyways, yeah. I''ll have to show her where everything is in the cupboards, I¡¯ve moved things since she was last here. That''ll be fun. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 59 (2) Dear Diary, Yep, it''s turning out to be a nice, relaxing cycle. Not much is going on, other than cookie baking. I don''t have much to say, but I haven''t written in a while and feel like I should put something in here. Plus Avi is off measuring Bonecrusher the Black for a tuxedo, and Lewis specifically requested no one else be around for this humiliation. I don''t know if the kobolds will ever convince him to wear the tuxedo, but doing that will be a lot easier once a dragon-sized tuxedo exists. Oh, they saw Avi adjusting tuxedos to fit dracoraptors. We never managed to get the raptors to wear a tuxedo. Kinda. They 100% absolutely did not let us put them on while they were awake. So we cast sleep on them, and put the tuxedos on while they were unconscious. I left food around them, hoping it would distract them when they woke up. It didn¡¯t. Well, the cheese distracted Charlie for about half a minute. But that¡¯s just Charlie. The rest of them acted like the tuxedos were some kind of evil creature holding them captive, and ripped the cloth to shreds within seconds. We gave up after the third try. It was totally worth it, though. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Meanwhile, Emmy is making her floor progressively creepier. At the beginning of the cycle the park was barely creepy. There was a little fog, but the lighting was regular day/night, and other than coloring all the rides black and putting spiders in the hedge maze she didn''t change much. And then she added more fog, and more, and made twilight and dawn stretch out longer. Now she''s made the hedge leaves black, and the grass around it is slowly going black, too. By the time the cycle ends the lighting will be permanent twilight, everything will be black, and the fog will be super thick. Which I think is a cool idea. At first everyone thought her version of "spooky" was kinda lame, but by now we''ve figured it out and yeah, it''s good. Plus it gave people who hate spooky things a couple days to hang out when it was only a tiny bit spooky. Emmy''s doing a really good job of being in charge of the floor. I''m glad she got the job. And I''m glad we were friends before, so I can be proud of her. Mika thinks the Admin put her in charge cuz she spent some time as a catgirl. That would kinda make sense. I mean, she already knew what it was like to be a catgirl, so she wouldn''t have to spend time figuring things out. The changes would be familiar. I wonder if she got the "don''t leave your shop" feelings we all got at the beginning. When she was in Mika¡¯s shop, I mean. She didn''t mention any, but then we also all got a "don''t talk about it" feeling. If she got one, she probably got the other. I wonder if there are any "don''t do this" feelings she gets now. What would they even be? I mean, she doesn''t interact with players, and that''s what most of my weird feelings relate to¡­ Maybe I should take her a pizza and ask. That would be fun. I haven''t really talked to her in a while. Oh, Avi just got back. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 59 (Admin) Admin 6 sat down in an overstuffed chair, listening to Admin 5 complain about how her players were purposefully going slow. "I know this isn''t a race or anything, but it''s like they''re sightseeing," she huffed. "It''s been too long, they''re getting bored." "It really has," Admin 1 said. "My players asked if they could have a vacation cycle." "What did you answer?" Admin 6 asked. Admin 1 shrugged. "I didn''t. I''d like to give them a break, but we can''t." "Why don''t we ask to stop things now?" Admin 2 asked, fiddling with his beer. "There''s no real reason we have to reach 60 cycles, only the Director''s love of multiples of six. We all know who we''re sending, right?" Slowly, all the other admins nodded. "All we need is time to set up a floor for everyone we leave behind," Admin 5 said. "We have our Floor 1''s player-only, so we don''t even need to pause things to set it all up." "Yeah," Admin 2 said, nodding. "If we''re good at our jobs, it shouldn''t take us more than, what, five hours?" "Please, three hours," Admin 1 said. "Just copy/paste a catgirl floor and edit it." "Figuring out how to phrase the announcement will be the hardest part," Admin 3 added. Admin 4 nodded. "Might as well get it over with. Let''s ask to end it here." Admin 5 pulled up a message box. "Want me to write the letter?" They agreed, and Admins 1 and 2 moved to stand behind her to help. Admin 3 went to get another beer as Admin 4 finished his. Admin 6 stayed seated. He wanted to leave and go straight to Emmy. He needed to tell her they wouldn''t have another cycle together. But he couldn''t. Leaving now would look suspicious. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Admin 5 finished writing and sent the message off. The other two sat down. "What will you have the players that are left behind do?" Admin 3 asked. "Best I can come up with is a fetch quest." Admin 1 grinned. "Nothing wrong with a fetch quest. I''m going to make a couple bosses unbeatable and tell them to have at it. If they win... Fetch quest." "Combine the two," Admin 2 laughed. "Fetch a drop from an unbeatable boss." "Make it a rare drop, too," Admin 5 said, her eyes gleaming. Admin 6 finished off his beer as the group laughed. "How long do you think it''ll take to get an answer?" he asked. "I might go and start¡­" A message notification popped up, stopping him. It was from the director.
In order to not make people wait for an unknown amount of time while all dungeons reach Cycle 60, I will have you stop everything at the end of your current cycle. Please send me the files on your chosen players today.
"Nice," Admin 2 said, smiling. Admin 1 got up and stretched. "Well. Back to work we go." They said their good-byes and left for their own offices. Admin 6 already had his files written. He scanned through them, making sure it all sounded reasonable, and sent them on to the Director. Then he added a portal from Floor 1 to Floor 93.5, set it to allow players through, and shoved enough campsites to hold all the players onto Floor 1. After a brief inner debate, he changed the cabins to only be rentable by two people at once, and added a copy of his tavern to the floor. His original tavern, with its failed players and goldfish, would be brought in at the end of the cycle. All that took fifteen minutes. He teleported to Emmy''s house, landing in her living room. She was just coming down the stairs from her bedroom, and jumped at his sudden appearance. "Hi," she laughed. "What''s up?" "This will be the last cycle," he said, walking to her. "There won''t be a Cycle 60." Her smile faded. "Oh. So in a couple days¡­" "I''ll be gone." The Admin took a breath, wanting to say so many things, but somehow the words didn''t come out. Emmy touched his chest, peering into his eyes. "How much time can you spare?" she asked softly. Calvin put his hands on her waist, pulling her closer. "The most important thing for me right now is spending as much time as I can with you." She smiled, kissed him gently, and led him up the stairs. Cycle 59 (3) Dear Diary, Yep, the spooky floor is very spooky now. I went to talk to Emmy but I couldn''t find the door to her house. That was weird. So after a couple minutes I gave up. I left a note saying I have pizza for her on the gate, tho, so she might come over sometime. Anyways, Avi finished the tuxedo for Lewis! He hasn''t worn it yet, but the kobolds are working on that. Lewis said there has to be a super special occasion for him to wear a tuxedo, which I do agree with. No one wears tuxedos in their general, day to day life. Unless they work at a stupidly fancy place and a tuxedo is their uniform. The kobolds wanted to throw a formal party, but Lewis said that isn''t special. It''s just a party, and the kobolds have parties all the time. Although they haven''t really had any parties since¡­ I think the symphony was their last party. Unless they''ve been having secret parties on their floor and not inviting anyone. I don''t think that''s the case. Nat would have asked me to help with cooking, and Avi is officially a member of their band. We would have heard about it, even if we weren''t invited. In other news, the players should get here tomorrow. That means I''ll need to cook actual food, and I won''t be able to make any more cookies. I''ve been cooking for NPCs when they come in, but I can tell them I''m busy baking cookies so I can''t make anything in the oven. I can''t tell that to players. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I''ve made something like 300 cookies, that should be enough for the fair next cycle. I can''t wait to see what everyone else has made and wants to trade. Especially since there''s been plenty of time to prepare and make cool stuff. Nat has been knitting hats. Not mini hats, people-sized hats. She has a couple different patterns that she''s made, and in a couple different colors. Sadly, none of her hats are made to fit around cat ears. She let me try a few, and my ears just move too much. It knocks them off. I asked if she could put holes in the hats, but no. Either it would destabilize them too much, or the hat would hinder my ear movement and hearing. On the plus side (at least I think it''s a plus), we found out that if I lay my ears back as far as I can get them, put a hat on, and then let my ears spring up, it''ll yeet the hat across the room! It''s very fun. I can''t believe I spent so much time with a tiny trebuchet on my head without noticing! Ear yeeting doesn''t work with a lot of things. Whatever it is has to be fairly light, but big enough to span the space between both ears. Hats work, cookies work, pencils only work if you can get them to not roll off, nothing glass works, paper doesn''t really work, and cutlery works. Yes, we tested it. Y wants to have a spoon yeeting contest. At first he wanted to use knives, but that seemed like a recipe for disaster. It would be fun, but I suspect whoever has the biggest ears would win. Bigger ears means more muscle controlling them, which means the spoon will go farther. ¡­Is it farther or further? ¡­Did I label that last batch of cookies? I should check. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 59 (4) Dear Diary, This is it. This is the last cycle here. We just got a message from the Admin telling us that we¡¯ll switch dungeons when the cycle ends. That¡¯ll be like¡­ tomorrow. The players are already at Floor 97, we asked the kobolds. I kinda feel like I should be packing or something. Like I need to get ready somehow. But we won''t travel over with our inventories, so there''s no point. I mean, I pulled all my stuff out of my inventory, in case it gets erased. But that took a grand total of three seconds, so now all my stuff is sitting in the corner of my room. I guess I¡¯ll have to leave you behind, too. Sorry, Diary. Gin is becoming a catgirl and taking over my diner. The Admin said he''s going to provide cabins for all our replacements so we don''t have to worry about them moving into our apartments. Which, that''s nice. I''m not sure if I''ll ever see any of my stuff again, but at least I know no one will throw out my knicknacks. Samantha is taking over Kimi''s shop. That''ll be a good place for her, it''ll keep her busy. Avi said the inn will work like the cabins do, with little dialogue boxes by each door. So no one will have to take over the inn. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Mika''s shop will be run by Jef, one of the guys who joined the blacksmith competition way back. The magic shop is going to be run by someone named Bird, I don''t know them. Lily doesn''t, either. Apparently they messaged the Admin a while back asking if they could have more spells, cuz magic is cool, and he made a note of it. Aya''s shop is going to be run by Gin''s boyfriend. He''ll figure out good quests to give people. ¡­I just realized, if I''m not here next cycle, I won''t be around for the market. I have so many cookies. And I guess Gin will have to sell them. I hope she gets good stuff. I hope she doesn''t forget they exist and leave them to go stale. Wow, yeah, I''m actually super upset about that. Couldn''t the Admin have told us earlier? Or had us go at the end of next cycle? This seems¡­ very unfair. I wonder if the players from other dungeons got more warning. I kinda hope they didn¡¯t, just so it¡¯s unfair to everyone equally. At least we can have that. At least I had time to say good-bye. Not in person, since the kobolds are busy fighting players, but I got to talk to Nat on the sending stone. I¡¯ll miss her. Maybe I should message Gigi¡­ I hope the velociraptors don¡¯t think we¡¯ve abandoned them. I can¡¯t exactly message them to tell them what¡¯s up. ¡­I hope the new dungeon has wolves and velociraptors we can be friends with. Even if we aren¡¯t supposed to. We¡¯ll very sneakily be friends. I hope the other players are nice, too. Even if we don¡¯t interact with them a whole lot. Just being around nice people is¡­ nice. I hate waiting. Well, for the last time here, I guess¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 60 (Notices) Announcement to all Players: Welcome to Cycle 60! You will notice Floor 1 looks different from usual. This is because the first phase of your time here has ended. Phase 2 will focus on exploration. I have hidden five gold turtle figurines on every floor. Your job is to find as many as possible. The cycle will not reset until every turtle is found. As there is now no benefit to killing, you will no longer receive any reward for doing so. Mobs will no longer attack unprovoked. They do not know where the turtles are, so you have no reason to provoke them. There are two new features on Floor 1 I would like everyone to be aware of: the old tavern and the portal. The old tavern is where I put players who, for whatever reason, I didn''t want in my dungeon for a certain period of time. They are now back in, and should be treated as normal players. Unless they are fish, in which case feel free to torment them as much as you see fit. The portal leads to Floor 93.5. This is a Secret Floor with portals to all other floors on it. KILLING IS NOT ALLOWED ON FLOOR 93.5. If you kill a mob on that floor, you will be banned from returning, and thus lose access to the portals. Other than that, it is now possible to purchase a cabin or inn/tavern room. All cabins are available. Your purchase will be permanent through all cycles and phases. Teleport beacons and activators are available for purchase in catgirl shops. Good luck, Admin * * * * *
From: The Director
To: Avi [Player 601], Aya [Player 602], Kimi [Player 603], Lily [Player 604], Mika [Player 605], Nikki [Player 606], Samuel [Player 607], Samurai [Player 608], Staab [Player 609], Y [Player 610]
Subject: Congratulations!
Congratulations, players! You ten have been hand-chosen by your admin to go on to the Master Dungeon! This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Within the hour, I shall personally remove you from your current dungeon. You will notice your names have new numbers next to them. These will be your identification numbers in the Master Dungeon. You will experience an odd sense of time passage and some memory loss when I pull you over. This is normal. Do not be alarmed. If you wish to say good-bye to anyone in your current dungeon, now is the time to do so. I look forward to seeing how you do in my dungeon! Director
* * * * *
From: Admin
To: Occupants of Floors 60, 61, 69, 91, 97, 98
Subject: Moving
Hey, so, you''re the floors I''ve chosen to send on to the next dungeon. Should be pretty similar to this one, but there will be a couple of inventory changes, stat resets and other things. The Director might change some other things, too, I don''t know. Just do what you usually do. When the catgirls show up, at least pretend they¡¯re normal players. You can be like "hey, we recognize you and no one else, cool!" but don''t throw them a party. At least not for the first five cycles. Thanks. Admin
* * * * *
From: Admin
To: All Non-Players
Subject: Phase 2
Hey, This cycle marks a change for the dungeon. Players are being told to search for gold turtle figurines instead of focusing on killing. I put five figurines on each floor. If you find one, leave it alone. Unless you want to make copies, go right ahead with that. When a player gets to your floor, you won''t be pulled back to it any more. I''ve added a physical barrier around your houses and areas, on top of the invisibility shield, so players won''t be able to get in even if they find your homes. If they glitch in somehow, just let me know and I''ll deal with it. They will have access to Floor 93.5, ignore them as much as possible. A couple floors have been taken to the Master Dungeon, mostly lower floors. Don''t worry about it. That should be everything¡­ Admin
Volume 2 done! Woo! We did it! Come back next week for Volume 3: Beating the Master Dungeon with Friendship, Velociraptors, and LVL 100 Cooking! Can''t wait a full week? There''s three free bonus chapters on my Patreon already, and by the time you get the first chapter here, there''ll be five chapters up there! A full PDF of the edited volume is also available for sale there, in case you''re interested. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. An audiobook version is currently being recorded, so check author notes for updates on that. I''m also working on getting ebooks and print books for both volumes available through Lulu, which works with... basically every distributor that isn''t Kindle. I''ll put links up when I get them. Meanwhile, the comment section is now open for Q&A! Ask away! ~Sadie Cycle 1 (Announcement) Welcome, Player! You are one out of ten people in your original dungeon chosen to go on to the Master Dungeon. Here you will face new threats and challenges, but some floors will be familiar to you. You will be tested in new ways, with the end reward being far beyond your greatest expectations. This dungeon contains 60 floors, every fifth floor being a respawn point, and every tenth floor being a Catgirl Floor. You will not be given any Items or Weapons from your previous dungeon. Some items will be available for purchase on your Inventory screen, but most things you will have to buy from a catgirl shop. Most of your stats and spells will revert down to Level 1. However, you will be allowed to choose two (2) stats and one (1) spell to keep at what they are now. Choose wisely. There will be 30 Cycles. At Cycle 15, if you have not pressed the reset button on the bottom floor three times, you will be removed from the dungeon. The button must be pressed by eight people for the cycle to reset. In this dungeon, your race will be determined by the Director. All other things which were customizable in your previous dungeon still are. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Every cycle the number of people allowed per party will change. Some cycles will only allow solo players, while some will allow up to ten. The first cycle will require a party of ten people. I wish you all luck. Director. ***** A note from your previous dungeon¡¯s Admin: Hey. This dungeon is basically a mash of everyone¡¯s dungeons, imported with NPCs and all. Do what you usually do whenever you get to a floor you recognize. All the Admins had slightly different magic systems, even though the magic colors and spells were determined by the Director. Someone made food magical in their dungeon, and the Director thought that was cool, so food has magical properties here. Don¡¯t worry about winning the first five cycles. If you do, great. But take time to get to know everything. Anything made out of candy has a 75% chance of randomly exploding. Charm and poison might look different from what you¡¯re used to. A couple Floors don¡¯t require fighting to win. If an NPC came from Admin 3¡¯s dungeon DO NOT TRUST THEM. Especially catgirls. I¡¯ll be able to contact you a bit more freely, but I won¡¯t be able to help in any practical way. And seriously¡­ Good luck. Admin 6 Cycle 1 (1) Hello Diary! Welcome to my inventory! You''re here to replace a diary I lost when I moved to this dungeon! Well, I lost pretty much everything when we moved over. Fancy cape, bonk stick, marriage ring, diary, OP stats, collars for velociraptors¡­ They still exist, just not here. Which sucks. But that''s ok. We can replace most things. What matters is everyone''s together. As you are a new book, I suppose I should say who "everyone" is¡­ I''m Nikki! I''m a chef! In the old dungeon I had a diner, and made all sorts of yummy food. I don''t have a diner here, since I''m a real player now, but one skill I transferred over is Cooking, so I''ve still got that at Level 100. Which is pretty epic, especially since food here is magical! The other skill I transferred was Pain Resistance (LVL 100), since not having that would suck. The spell I transferred over is Group Teleport, which I also have at Level 100. Everything else was set back at 1. I primarily use green magic, and my weapon is a staff. It used to be the very epic Bonk Stick, but that stayed in the old dungeon. Avi is the love of my life. He''s a monster tamer, and together we will befriend every creature in the dungeon! Well, monster taming is supposed to be like charm magic but for wolves and spiders, but it has the potential for so much more. In the old dungeon there was a wolf taming skill, and it turned into monster taming when we switched over. He uses silver magic, which is pretty special. Not just anyone can get silver magic. Kimi and Y are our best friends. They''re a couple of mad scientists, whose combined mathematical, chemical, and scientific knowledge is gonna get us in a lot of trouble. Hopefully. Kimi uses red fire magic, while Y uses black shadow magic. They pretend they''re edgy and mysterious, while really they''re just two ends of the chaos spectrum. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Mika I think qualifies as a "tank". She uses different weapons, but her favorite are scimitars. If there''s a melee battle, Mika is in the middle. She uses white ice magic, but she''s petitioning for the white to be iridescent white, since epic rainbow hair isn''t a thing here. Samuel and Samurai (orange and pink) are twins. They used to be part of a hive mind, and still kinda act like there''s a telepathic link between them. They''re fun. And they''re in love with Aya. Aya is¡­ Well, she uses yellow lightning magic and a halberd. She''s strong and graceful, and overall amazing. Yeah. Lily uses purple psychic magic and some charm magic. She tries to be as elegant as possible. And currently she''s dating Staab. Staab, lastly, is a good guy. He has brown earth magic, but he doesn''t like using it. He prefers using swords and crossbows. Together, the ten of us represent Admin 6''s Quagmire Dungeon! We''re racing against representatives from five other dungeons to hit the Reset Button as many times as possible! Thankfully the Director of this Master Dungeon allows people to buy a couple things on Floor 1, or I wouldn''t have anything. Other than clothes, of course. We all showed up here in uniform. The Admins chose different uniforms for their teams, ours is a brown t-shirt with a 6 on the front, black hoodie with a 6 on the back, and blue jeans. Not complicated or exciting, but functional. Oh, and boots. This cycle we''re all human. I don''t like being human, being a catgirl is waaay better. But at least I get to keep my green hair. Anyways, the race to Floor 60 starts tomorrow morning. We were given a day to adjust ourselves to being here and stuff. Each admin''s group gets their own mini inn thing on Floor 1, so that''s nice. It''s not exactly a home, but it''s better than nothing. Having a private room with your own bed is good. Speaking of my own bed, I need sleep for tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (2) Dear Diary, There''s some weird stuff in this dungeon. Before, I thought slimes were the worst thing ever. And they are pretty bad. But today we fought a guy made out of splintering candy cane. Oh, since this is the first cycle, all ten of us get to be in a party together! Which is really cool. We''ve never all fought together before. So, there are sixty floors here. Floor 1 is only for players. We can access our inventories, and there''s a shop with veeeeery basic items in it. Like bronze swords and blank notebooks. No one really mingled this cycle, everyone stuck to their dungeon group. Next cycle I want to try and say hi to a couple people. Floor 2 is damp. It''s dark and spooky, with nasty acidic slugs and giant vampire crickets. Not fun. Staab got a necrotic sword, though, so that''s neat. Floor 3 is a candy floor! I thought that would make it fun! I was wrong! A group of people made out of candy cane live there, and they''re kinda like the golems from our original dungeon. They explode when you touch them. So I think in the future we need to use ranged attacks here. Being hit in the face with a bunch of minty sugar shards is horrible. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Floor 4 is a floor from our dungeon! Over there, it was Floor 7. Meaning we got to take a break from fighting and snuggle some wolves! I highly recommend a wolf snuggle break at least once a day. Samuel, Mika and Staab killed all the spiders on the floor. Since we are kinda supposed to. No one was allowed to hurt our wolves, though. Floor 5 was kinda a castle floor? It was full of zombies. I feel sorry for them. Having skin that''s constantly rotting off can''t be comfortable. They''re going to be the first people I make a cake for next cycle. I know it''s their job to attack us, but they seemed nice. They thought Avi''s illusions were cool. Floor 6 was a field of flowers. Carnivorous flowers. With poisonous pollen. And bees the size of my head. I''m totally gonna snuggle a bee one day. We''ve been trying to beat the floors "correctly", but the poison got too thick after a couple minutes. I ended up teleporting everyone to the exit. And that''s where we stopped! Well, we stopped in the stairwell between Floor 6 and 7. There''s a campsite here with cabins, the same as in our old dungeon. Since we don''t know where the other players are, we''re all crammed into three of the six cabins. Avi and I are sharing one with Kimi and Y. Mika''s with Aya and the Sams. Staab and Lily have their own cabin, at the risk of having some stranger rent one of the other beds. So yeah! Today was exciting! Tomorrow we''ll get to a catgirl floor, and we''ll find out how far ahead or behind the other players we are. I hope we aren''t behind. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (3) Dear Diary, It''s weird getting to a catgirl floor with players already on it. Usually we''re way ahead, but in a new dungeon I guess things will be different. To be fair, we''re only the second group here. But that does mean ten people were wandering around. We decided to spend the night here. I spent a while cooking with Y and Masha (the chef here). I don''t know if we''ll meet any slimes, but we made a bunch of ranch balls just in case. And meatballs. And some box-mix cakes. Because you never know when a cake will come in handy. Oh! Mika is making an oven type thing to go on top of campfires! So I can make food on catgirl floors then just reheat it when we''re at campsites. That''ll make things easy. And since it''s a cheap, non-magical item, it should stay in our party inventory when the cycle resets. Oh yeah! Party inventories are a thing, but the other two shared inventory types aren''t. So that''s good but also kinda sucks. I''m glad we have something, but on cycles when we have to go solo I¡¯ll miss it. Anyways, the catgirls here don''t know which Admin they had. I kinda want to ask our Admin how we''ll know which catgirls are from Admin 3''s dungeon, since before now no Admin gave their number. He specifically told us to watch out for them, but I don''t know how we''re supposed to do that. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I wonder why we shouldn''t trust them. Like, what did they do that''s so bad and scary? We did plenty of things we weren''t supposed to, but that got us trusted more. Oh, the floors! I was kinda gonna write down what each floor was¡­ Floor 7 is a water floor. It''s got a big squid in the middle, and a pack of killer whales swims around the edges. Killer whales are very different from sharks. They''re smarter, and hunt together. They don''t just see something in the water and bite it. Floor 8 was cool. It''s an old mansion-type house, with pit traps and arrows that come from walls and stuff. There aren''t really any living monsters in the house, other than plants and a swarm of rats in one room. Mostly it was just traps. It made for a nice change. Floor 9 is a swamp, but instead of water it''s strawberry syrup. The worst kind of syrup. There are mosquitoes made out of sugar, and alligators made out of waffles. At first we were like "can waffle teeth hurt?" and then one ripped Samuel''s arm off. Turns out, grip strength does not rely on sharpness. Thankfully Aya''s halberd goes through waffle flesh super easy, so they weren''t hard to beat. Swamps are the worst. Even candy swamps. And then Floor 10 is a catgirl floor! So yeah, that''s it. Mika went to see what''s on the next floor, so we''ll be prepared a little bit for tomorrow. I hope it''s not a swamp or slimes. I''m not gonna say those are the absolute worst things to have ever existed, but they do suck. A lot. And I hate them. Avi''s calling me, I have to go! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (Admin) Admin 6 focused very hard on the city he was designing, hoping everyone else was doing the same. One wall of the shared office they now had was covered in screens. The screens showed what players were doing. On one particular screen, Avi and Nikki were about to enter Floor 11. Floor 11 had previously been his Floor 17. It was the first boss floor in the Master Dungeon, and the only players to visit so far had been scouts. Avi had Nikki close her eyes before passing through the entrance. It was cute. Her reaction when she recognized the floor was one of pure joy. Together they ran to the lake, thrilled to be there. Admin 6 prayed no one was paying attention. Sweat dripped off his forehead as he tried to keep his eyes off the screen. The four velociraptors recognized Nikki and Avi. At that moment there was so much happiness on Floor 11. Even the spinosaurus seemed happy to see them. Admin 6 regretted everything. Sending them had been a horrible idea. Sending the dinosaur floor had been a horrible idea. Accepting the position of Admin had been a horrible idea. Deciding to cut back on his coffee intake had been a horrible idea. Choosing to- "You ok there?" Admin 1 asked, startling him. "You look sick." Admin 6 shook his head, summoning an iced coffee. "Headache. It''s fine, it''s just warm in here." He lifted the cup and drained half of it in one go. Admin 5 watched him. "Maybe we should turn the temperature down, I''m feeling warm too." The other admins agreed. They paused in their programming, stretching and summoning snacks. Soon the room''s temperature dropped, making Admin 6 cold. Meanwhile, Avi was trying to pass the velociraptors through the entrance barrier. It wasn''t working. Admin 6 tried to not watch. If he looked at that specific screen, someone might follow his line of sight. That would be bad. "Oh hey, my players finally got to the catgirl floor," Admin 2 said, watching a screen on the left side of the wall. "They were the last ones, right?" Admin 5 asked. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Yeah," he answered. "I sent more solo players, working in a big group is slowing them down." "No one''s continuing on yet?" Admin 4 asked, scanning through the screens. It took all of Admin 6''s self-control to not launch himself in front of the screen Avi and Nikki were on. "There''s a pair, but it looks like they''re just scouting," Admin 5 said, pointing. All eyes went to the screen. Nikki and Avi were standing on the stair side of the entrance, examining the barrier. The velociraptors bounced on the other side of the barrier. "All the groups have sent scouts, right?" Admin 2 asked, watching. "It is a smart thing to do." "Yeah," Admin 1 said. Giving up whatever they were doing, Nikki pulled a pack of sushi from her inventory and tossed pieces to the velociraptors. "Is she¡­ feeding them?" Admin 3 asked. Admin 6 wiped the sweat off his face before replying. "Yeah, they do that," he said casually. Admin 5 looked at him. "Wait, I''ve seen them," she said. "When I went to visit you once. Right? And you were watching these two feed dinosaurs." "Yeah," he said, remembering. "Yeah, these are them." On the screen, Nikki and Avi turned to go back to Floor 10. "Why did you choose them?" Admin 5 asked. "They''re fun to watch," he shrugged. "It''s a break from the murderhobos." "Fair," Admin 2 decided. "Ok but can they win?" Admin 1 asked. Admin 6 nodded. "Absolutely. They reset plenty of cycles. And they do fight, they just like to¡­ hug cute things, I don''t know." Admin 5 was watching him doubtfully. "What about the rest of your players? Are they good, are they winners, or are they just entertaining?" "Both! All three!" he snapped. "Look, even if I deliberately chose my worst players, all that means for you is a greater chance of winning. Right? So why are you so worried about it?" "Whatever," she said, turning back to her monitor. "I''m sorry I cared." Admins 1 and 2 were glaring at him. "Ok, sorry I yelled," Admin 6 said. "But I made my choice of players and I stand by it. Even if you said something that made me rethink everything, it''s too late now. If my players bother you, then don''t watch them." "Ok, whatever," she said, still annoyed. Admin 6 took a drink of coffee. "So you chose your weirdest players?" Admin 3 asked. "Pretty much. Weirdest doesn''t mean worst though." "I look forward to seeing what they do," Admin 4 said, looking back at his monitor. Admin 6 felt something in his mind relax as the other Admins went back to work. His group was now established as weird players. Nothing more, nothing less. Perfect. Cycle 1 (4) Dear Diary, FLOOR 17 IS HERE!!!!! Except it''s Floor 11 now! We get to see our dinosaurs again! I just want to give the Admin a big hug. First our wolves, now our raptors, it almost feels like he sent the best floors. And yeah, we had to fight the spinosaurus, but that''s ok. We all got a ton of XP for it, and I got a magic staff! It boosts healing spells by 15%, which isn''t the best, but it''s better than the mop handle I was using before. No one was allowed to kill the velociraptors, though. Everything else is fair game, but Lex and Tim are off-limit. ¡­Arby and Kelly are off-limit too. Can''t forget about them, even if they aren''t super great travel buddies. Since this is our first cycle here, we decided to not take any velociraptors with us. Mika is thrilled. We don''t know what we''ll face, so we don''t know how dangerous it would be for them. Next cycle we''ll know, so we''ll take them with us. Mika will not be thrilled, but nya. Anyways, that''s Floor 11. Floor 12 is super cool. It''s space. There''s no gravity, which is amazing. I thought it was amazing, at least. The feeling of floating around made Staab and Samurai barf. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The walls have twinkling lights in them like stars, and there are big pumice stones floating around to bounce off of. Or at least Lily said they were pumice stones. I have no reason to doubt her, but it''s odd to me that she can identify rocks. Oh, some of the rocks are inhabited by crab things that reach out and grab your feet. They''re not hard to kill, just annoying to deal with. Flailing around trying to get a claw off your boot knocks you off course. There are also frog things that jump around just fine without gravity, and they are very poisonous. Floor 13 is a typical grassland floor, but it has a herd of wooly mammoths on it. And nothing else. It''s not a very good floor, honestly. Yes, the mammoths are extremely territorial (and surprisingly fast), but they don''t have any way of attacking someone on the ceiling. Like, in our Admin''s dungeon, he always put spiders or eyebats or something on floors where there was a ground-only threat. So if someone had wallclimbing potions or could fly, using those abilities was just as dangerous as not. But here we just took wallclimbing potions and shot mammoths from a distance, no problem. And that was it. Floor 14 was a forest lit like night. It has ghosts and leeches in it. The ghosts aren''t bad, but the leeches move stupid fast and latch on to anyone that stands still for more than three seconds. And they''re on all the trees and bushes, so if you brush up against a branch you come away with a leech on you. It''s horrible. We''re currently between Floors 14 and 15. It''s not late enough for us to stop yet, but we all agreed we need a break after the leeches. Just long enough for the eeugh feelings to die down. From here on out we''ll be teleporting straight over Floor 14. No need to experience that one ever again. Looks like we''re about ready to continue on, so¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (5) Dear Diary, Yep, it''s official! The Admin sent all the best floors! Floor 15 is a big room filled with gold. It has a bunch of golden wyverns in it. And in command of the wyverns? Jenny! That''s right, Painbringer the Gold and her wyvern minions are the second boss in this dungeon! We had tea. Because, come on, it''s Jenny. And I had cake just sitting in my inventory, waiting to be eaten. Mika and Y were actually really smart with this one. We''re supposed to be kinda pretending to be normal players, and offering a dragon boss tea isn''t a normal player thing. So when we saw her, Mika was like "hey, I know the secret to this boss fight! She''s gonna ask if we''ve come to steal from her or if we have an offering, and offering fancy tea gets the best results!" And Y was like "yes, tea and fancy cakes is the best thing to offer! I have done this many times." Jenny obviously heard all this, so she played along. We aren''t just randomly best friends with a dragon boss, nope, it''s a game mechanic. Anyone can have tea and cake with the dragon, if only they offer. So yeah, we had a lovely time with Jenny, and after an hour we continued on to the campsite. I''m glad her floor came right after the horrible leech floor. I was worried I''d have nightmares about leeches, but instead I had a pleasant dream about¡­ Well, ok, about Avi and me getting the dracoraptors into tuxedos, and then they were supposed to do this obstacle course thing, but the kraken from Floor 95 was on the course, and the yetis were trying to explain that it was in violation of several rules, and then I woke up. But there weren''t any leeches in the dream, that''s the important thing. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Anyways, we¡¯re at the second catgirl floor now! The buildings are all made out of sugar glass, which is pretty neat. It¡¯s slightly see-through, tho, and the catgirls here all say they hate it. They say leaning against a wall for more than a minute makes it melt slightly, meaning they get their fur all sticky. I can see how that would suck. I mean, I can think of worse things, but having to live with it for years would be super annoying. Oh yeah, recording the floors for official recording purposes! Floor 16 is a beach floor, with waves and crabs. To open the exit you have to collect three different shells. Searching for shells was pretty fun. Almost relaxing, if you ignore the random tidal waves and the snippy crabs. Avi and I are totally gonna adopt a crab someday. Floor 17 is another water floor, but it¡¯s¡­ weird. It¡¯s lit like night, and instead of sharks or anything there¡¯s just octopi and eels. And the water is weirdly warm. Like if someone filled a bathtub then forgot and came back an hour later warm. It¡¯s just a perfectly unpleasant temperature. Floor 18 is rocky. It has horse-sized ants and crickets on it. I don¡¯t like bugs. Next cycle I think I¡¯m gonna suggest we skip it. Floor 19 is¡­ Ehh... It¡¯s a candy floor. There are these swarms of gummy bears that try to be eaten. Like, they jump straight at your face and scramble around with little sticky arms. And they are extremely poisonous. Like, I use green magic. I have resistance to poison. And even so when one got between my teeth my health started visibly going down. Only me, Aya and Staab didn¡¯t die on that floor. I won¡¯t say we should skip it next time, cuz I¡¯m sure there¡¯s some trick to it. Like, if we all had masks on that might make things easier. Yes, it was horrible, but it wasn¡¯t boring-horrible or traumatizing-horrible. Aaand then Floor 20 is the catgirl floor with sugar houses. Aaaaaand it¡¯s time for me to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (6) Dear Diary, Once again I feel the need to remind everyone that Avi is absolutely the cutest thing ever and I love him so much. The dracoraptors are here. Learning this caused six people utter curses and/or wails of despair. Kimi and Y looked resigned. I was happy, but worried they¡¯d pretend we were complete strangers and eat us (they do that some times). And Avi¡­ I think the term is ¡°glomp¡±. He glomped the dracoraptors. It was very cute. They almost acted like they wanted to bite him after that, but I offered food and they left him alone. They did eat Samuel and Lily, tho. I realize that I don¡¯t feel the same about the dracoraptors as I do the velociraptors or wolves. I mean, no one gets to hurt our wolves. And everyone agrees. But the dracoraptors are different. They sneak attack, and also attack unprovoked. So seeing Aya about to decapitate one with her halberd doesn¡¯t fill me with the same horror that it would if she were about to kill a wolf. With the dracoraptors it¡¯s¡­ fair. I won¡¯t help, but I understand why it must be done. Anyways, the dracoraptors (and pterodactyls, they¡¯re here too) are Floor 24 now. Their attacks are lower-level than what they were before, which is good. I¡¯m pretty sure if their levels hadn¡¯t changed one bite would have KO¡¯d me. Instead of three bites. ¡­They really are kinda OP, and always have been. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Floor 21 is a forest, but some trees are illusions. The illusion trees have levers in them that you have to pull to unlock the exit. It was a fun floor. Floor 22 is a gingerbread floor, with a gingerbread town and gingerbread people. It¡¯s kinda like the kobold floor, just a bunch of people you have to kill to get to the exit. Once the candy flair gets old the floor is boring. I really want to talk to the gingerbread people, though. Their lives must have been super hard to get used to at first. Floor 23 is a maze. It¡¯s a cave system, not a normal maze. There¡¯s acidic goo that drips from the ceiling. Eyebats and tentacle rats are the monsters. No slimes, tho, so that¡¯s great. Floor 25 is a puzzle room. Like, just a puzzle. No monsters, no NPCs, not even plants. It¡¯s just a big square room with a bunch of levers on the walls and a map on the ceiling. As soon as the whole party is in, it starts filling with water. All you have to do is pull the levers in a specific order, and the exit opens. It¡¯s¡­ something different. I think Floor 21 and Floor 25 came from the same Admin. The levers look identical, and it just feels like they¡¯re from the same place. And we know that there are only six Admins that sent floors over. We know which floors came from our Admin. And the candy floors all came from the same Admin. That leaves four Admins with their own personalities and dungeon types. I think one of the Admins really likes puzzles, and sent puzzle floors. And one Admin I think really likes creepy things. The cave maze and the dark forest feel pretty same-y. Kimi is keeping a spreadsheet of what¡¯s on each Floor. When we¡¯re done with the cycle I think it would be fun to guess which Floors came from which Admins. Aya went down to Floor 26 to see if we can beat it tonight, and she says no. She said it¡¯s too big. So we continue on tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (7) The party made it to the end of the geyser field without anyone dying. Kimi was, frankly, surprised at that. Yes Samurai was burned, and Staab had lost a leg, but mostly they were in one piece. Y paused at the exit, looking back as the geysers went off again. Kimi moved next to him. ¡°They¡¯re on a schedule,¡± she said. ¡°I bet if we wanted to spend an hour here we could map it out perfectly.¡± He nodded. ¡°Next cycle we should. It would be fun.¡± She watched his eyes. He wasn¡¯t thinking about geyser schedules. Avi and Nikki stopped at the exit and came back to see what they were doing. ¡°Why does it smell like rotten eggs in here?¡± Avi asked. ¡°I think that¡¯s sulfur,¡± Nikki said. Y smiled, his eyes moving into focus. ¡°It is.¡± ¡°What¡¯s so exciting about sulfur?¡± Kimi asked. ¡°Other than the smell.¡± He grinned at her, then looked at Avi. ¡°Do you happen to know the three components necessary for fire?¡± Avi blinked. ¡°Erm, oxygen, fuel and¡­ heat?¡± ¡°Indeed. It¡¯s rather warm in here, wouldn¡¯t you say?¡± Kimi grinned. ¡°There¡¯s plenty of oxygen in this air.¡± Nikki took a step backwards. ¡°I¡¯m betting sulfur is flammable.¡± ¡°Sulfur is, in fact, extremely flammable,¡± Y said happily. Both Avi and Nikki took a step back. Kimi giggled. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Y put his arm around her. ¡°Do you see that lovely yellow ring around the geyser there?¡± ¡°That¡¯s sulfur?¡± Kimi asked, forming a fireball in her hand. ¡°Indeed. Go on, Bonfire, set the world ablaze.¡± ***** Dear Diary, Ok, so, remember on page 1 of this book I said Kimi and Y were mad scientists? Yeah, they blew up a Floor. It was, admittedly, an epic fireball. I¡¯m glad I was standing on the stair side of the exit when they set it off. As a result, I still have eyebrows. Kimi and Y do not. Or at least they didn¡¯t when we got to the catgirl floor. They might have purposefully died to respawn with eyebrows by now. I wonder if they¡¯ll get in trouble for that. One time they burned away all the oxygen on a Floor in our old dungeon, and the Admin was nooooot happy about it. This time they exploded all the oxygen away, and probably made the Floor completely uncrossable. If I were in charge, they¡¯d be in trouble. Aaaanyways. Floor 26 is a floodplain with big crocodiles and huge eagles. Floor 27 is a cavern with big glowing crystal formations and crystal golems. Floor 28 was a geyser field, and is now a bunch of scorched rubble. Floor 29 is a lake of boiling hot chocolate with floating marshmallows we¡¯re supposed to use to jump across. I¡¯m pretty sure we could tie them together and make a raft, too. And then Floor 30 is the catgirl floor. There, I¡¯ve recorded half the dungeon. I might stop for this cycle. Next cycle I¡¯ll write what the other half is. I mean, I¡¯ve been so focused on writing down what¡¯s on all the Floors I¡¯ve barely talked about the group! So yeah, I¡¯ll do that. Starting tomorrow, cuz I¡¯m tired. Even though I haven¡¯t written all that much. Oh well. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Director
To: All Players
Subject: Floor 28
For the last several hours, Floor 28 has been filled with an extremely toxic gas. I¡¯ve fixed the problem, and am looking into what happened. I apologize for any delay this may have caused your parties. Director
Cycle 1 (8) Dear Diary, Floor 28, the one Kimi and Y exploded, was completely not crossable for at least a couple hours yesterday. The Director fixed it at like midnight. She said she was looking into what happened. I hope Kimi and Y tell us if they get in trouble. But enough about that, it''s time I talked about food! So! Food here is magical! The ingredients aren''t magical by themselves, it''s completed dishes that gain magic properties. But, what''s in the dishes influences what properties it has. Which makes cooking kinda stressful, because I don''t know if leaving out oregano will affect the outcome. Yet. This is absolutely something I could spend days and weeks testing and cataloging. But, being a legit player, I only have at most a couple hours a day. So far we know that meatballs give a minor boost to strength, pizza gives a boost to stamina, and cake gives temp HP. It works on everyone, cuz we gave meatballs to the wolves and they gained strength. Sushi gives a boost to swim speed. Hamburgers and fries (yes, fries need to be eaten with it) give a +1 to literally everything. Fries by themselves give no buff, but if eaten with ketchup they add +1 to a couple random things. The Sams say that different sauces will make the buffs change, and have taken it upon themselves to eat nothing but fries for lunch and dinner until they''ve tried every sauce. A hamburger by itself gives +1 to strength and anything related to it. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Chicken burgers, tho, almost work like a flight potion. Chicken seems to always do something related to flight. As you can see, dear notebook, there''s no rhyme or reason to any of it. I think whoever came up with the system doesn''t ever cook, and just randomly added buffs to whatever dishes their catgirls sold. I need to make something that absolutely isn''t on any menu anywhere, and see what it does. So far I''ve been making things on the menu because it''s easy and my cooking level means I can do it fast without ever messing up. Plus we needed to know what buffs it all gave. I should make¡­ I really wish Nat''s cookbook was still in my inventory. There were plenty of good things in there¡­ I know. I''ll make lasagna. I can make one with beef then one with chicken. That''ll be good to start out with. Plus since I don''t have my pasta makers I can''t do anything too fancy. Lasagna noodles only need a rolling pin. Oh. Oh I know what to make. Kimi and Avi are gonna hate me, but I''m gonna make an energy drink again. Y and I have both been forbidden from making them, but this is for important science! If anything off-menu gives a buff, it''ll be that. Or maybe it''ll give a debuff. If anything were to give me a poison debuff, it''ll be that. Fish, cheese, espresso and mint syrup. I don''t even have to ask Y what the ingredients were. Hopefully the catgirl on Floor 40 doesn''t mind me making unholy abominations in her kitchen. I''ll clean up after, obviously, but the smell might linger¡­ If she does mind, I can stick to lasagna. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (9) Dear Diary, We made it to Floor 40! It''s weird to think that we''re already two thirds of the way through the dungeon. I''m glad this dungeon is way smaller than our old one. I didn''t write it yesterday, but the air elementals from Floor 91 are here. We spent a while fake fighting them as we talked. And then today we found the Floor 94 dire wolves! That was epic. They were super happy to see us, and I gave them all the meatballs I had saved up. Whiiiich means when we left they were about half again as strong as they should have been. I kinda feel like I should apologize to any players who came through after us. But oh well. What am I supposed to do, not feed the wolves when Siri and Floofles are sitting there all expectantly, watching me with those adorable faces? That''s crazy talk. Anyways, we made it here and I asked if I could borrow the catgirl''s kitchen. She said no. I really wasn''t expecting that. I mean, I respect it, it''s her kitchen, but it surprised me. So lasagna and energy drink making will have to wait till Floor 50. I hope. Being in a big party is fun. I hope we get to be in parties of ten at least a couple times. It''s good to all be together. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Samuel and Samurai miss Samantha. They''re kinda lost without her. They keep looking around like they''re about to ask someone something, but the person isn''t there. It''s sad. They''re sticking close to Aya, like they did when we first became players. Aya is more¡­ openly romantic with them than what she was before. Which is probably good. Before, it was kinda ambiguous what their relationship was. Like they didn''t want to put labels on anything. But now if anyone asked, they''d have a solid answer. Not that anyone''s going to ask. Especially not me, since it''s none of my business. And¡­ Ok, Avi is kinda jealous. I think I talked about how cool and pretty and smart Aya is one too many times, and he doesn''t like it. Anyways, Kimi said she hasn''t gotten in trouble for destroying Floor 28 yet, so they''re probably good. They say they won''t do it again unless they have a really good reason. Which is the most truthful thing they could say. Avi and I, meanwhile, are debating kidnapping a bee off Floor 6. On the one hand, bees are adorable, and having a fuzzy flying pet would be epic. On the other hand, Floor 6 is super high up there, and an NPC from Floor 25 could probably kill the bee by giving it a stern glare. But then, Lex and Tim are now at Floor 11, which means a stiff breeze on Floor 30 could kill them. Not a whole lot better. Buuuut, Lex and Tim are used to traveling with us. They''re trained, which makes up for their low level. Mostly. Bees would have to be taught that teleportation isn''t scary and stuff like that. If we wanted to wait, I guess we could kidnap Siri wolf or one of that pack. But waiting is boring and playing with velociraptors is fun. We''ll see how we''re feeling next cycle. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (10) Dear Diary, Lots of interesting things happened today. Instead of writing about it, I''m gonna describe the cabin ceiling in minute detail. So, the cabins are made out of logs, not cut timber or whatever it''s called. The ceilings are logs cut in half, with the flat side facing down. There isn''t any electricity, so there aren''t any lights or ok that''s gone on long enough. We''re currently between Floors 46 and 47. Floor 46 is a field of lavender, it''s really pretty. Lavender, the smell, is relaxing. Calming. These flowers give off so much relaxing smell that staying awake is almost impossible. It counted as charm magic, not poison, which I think is kinda clever. Almost no one uses charm magic cuz it''s pink, which means almost no one is resistant to it. Way more people have poison magic. Anyways, the smell doesn''t do any harm, it''s not painful. It just makes everything seem ok and like we should all take a nap. Unfortunately the floor is also full of cats and vampire butterflies. The butterflies land on anyone who isn''t moving quickly and suck their blood out like a dehydrated mosquito. But if you flail they get spooked and fly away. The cats, tho, they walk between your feet to make you fall over, and then bite. It''s pretty normal cat-like behavior, honestly. We were all super exhausted when we got out of there. Floor 43 is a candy floor. It''s a maze with walls made out of pink cotton candy. And what do we have in mazes? That''s right! Slimes! I hate slimes. I really hate slimes. Thankfully I had ranch balls, and they worked just fine. But I''d just like to state that slimes are the worst and I now have a grudge against the candy Admin for sending them here. And then, on Floor 44¡­ Well, Avi is upset about Floor 44. Avi knows dinosaurs. He loves dinosaurs. He can name lots of dinosaurs. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The things on Floor 44 are not dinosaurs. There''s a bird that he thinks is a hast eagle. And there''s a thing that looks like a giant cross between a tortoise and an armadillo he says is a gliptodon. And then there''s this¡­ thing that looks super weird and he has no clue what it is. It has the body of an elephant, but bigger, and then the neck and head of a giraffe. Kinda. It''s a rusty brown color. And they can run unreasonably fast. ¡­I realize I described all the creatures in the singular. There are multiples of all of them. I mean, I wish the floor only had three creatures on it, but no such luck. There''s like twenty. Anyways, Avi kinda took his not knowing the name of this creature personally. Like he''d failed at something. I tried telling him this isn''t a dinosaur, so he doesn''t need to know the name, but he''s still upset. I need to go cheer him up. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Admin 6 received another message asking the same thing. He wished he could tell Emmy about this. She''d find it absolutely hilarious. A part of him was tempted to send her a message, but he knew that was a suicidal idea. Still, he missed her. He wanted to talk to her so bad it hurt. Instead he sighed, finished his coffee, and leaned back. "Hey, 3, what creatures are on Floor 44?" he called. Admin 3 pushed his chair back, stretching. "Dunno. Why?" "Players are asking about it," Admin 6 shrugged. 3 leaned forwards again, typing. "Oh, that floor. Haast eagle, paraceratherium, and glyptodon." 6 nodded, setting fingers on keys. "Thanks. And how the hell do you spell all that?" "I''ll send it over," 3 said. "Thanks." A moment later 6 got the message. He opened up a new message box.
From: Admin 6
To: Avi (Player 601), Lily (Player 604), Nikki (Player 606), Samuel (Player 607), Y (Player 610)
Subject: Floor 44
The creatures on Floor 44 are Haast Eagle, Paraceratherium and Glyptodon. I don''t know which is which. If you get one of the armadillo things into the lavender field, I''ll send you the spreadsheet that shows what foods get what magical properties. Admin 6
Cycle 1 (11) Dear Diary, FLOOR 50 IS FROM OUR DUNGEON AND GIGI IS HERE!!! We get to see catgirls we already know! We can talk to them without trying to pretend we were never NPCs! It''s such a relief to talk to them. I''m kinda sorry they''re so far down in the dungeon, so we might not be able to spend a lot of time with them. But then, we wouldn''t really be able to spend time with them anyways. So I guess it''s ok. Gigi said we were the first people to show up, so that''s cool. We got here at like one in the afternoon, and were gonna keep going, but there wasn''t really a point. So far only one other team has showed up, and they got here at dinnertime. I think the rest were held back by Kimi and Y''s explosion. Aya asked what the floors below us are like, and guess what! Floor 97 has been transported here!!! We get to see the kobolds!!!!! (Floor 98 was sent here, too, but that''s not nearly as exciting.) I can''t wait to see Nat again! We''ll have to pretend to fight, but that''s ok. I have to ask her about food. OH! The Admin says he''ll tell us what the magical properties of all the food is if we get a glyptodon from Floor 44 to Floor 46! They''re herbivores, so I need to learn how to make some epic salads ASAP. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I think he wants us to try getting a giant tortoise armadillo off its floor just to entertain him, but that''s fine. Avi says it''s totally possible, and it''ll be a fun thing for us to do. ¡­Our Admin. Admin 6. He isn''t the Admin any more. Anyways he told us the names of all the creatures on Floor 44 so Avi is happy again. I like it when Avi is happy. Gigi says the floor is smaller than what it was before. There''s a flock of ghost ducks here, and they can''t wander around like they used to. She feels sad for them. Samurai asked why she doesn''t just take them down to Floor 61, and Gigi said the "don''t leave your shop" feelings are twice as strong as what they were before. She can still go to the diner and see the ducks, but the thought of leaving the floor is an absolute no. I feel sorry for her, but mostly I feel glad I''m not the one stuck here. I like being a player and being able to explore. Oh, Y and I have been re-banned from making energy drinks. It didn''t have any magical properties when we finished making it, which I think is lame. Unholy amalgamations ought to have magical properties. The lasagnas were delicious, but not magically delicious. So I guess the magic is linked to specific dishes, not to the ingredients. I don''t know how Kimi and Avi found out about the energy drink thing. Someone had to have snitched on us, but I don''t know who. The only one who looked into the kitchen was Lily, and she probably didn''t know what we were making. Unless she just commented that we were blending up fish, cuz there''s no reason to blend up fish. Of course it''s entirely possible Kimi just got a feeling that something was wrong in the universe and came to check what we were doing based on bad vibes. I wouldn''t be surprised if it was that one, honestly. Anyways, I need sleep for tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (12) Dear Diary, There''s another maze with slimes in it. I can''t be mad exclusively at the candy Admin any more. There are two Admins out there that I dislike. I suppose I could file a formal complaint about it, but that seems like too much effort. Anyways! Mika got a sword made out of glass and it''s super cool! It glows faintly in the dark, and is so sharp it can cut things at a distance. Not a super long distance. Just a couple inches. But still it''s epic and magical. Everyone else has basic magic weapons. Things with an increased crit chance, or a +2 to damage, or a minor magical effect. We haven''t been searching for loot boxes, and all the really neat stuff is in boxes. If we win this cycle, next cycle we''ll slow down a little and legit explore. We only found the one Mika''s sword was in cuz it was obvious. The floor is a cavern, and to get across we had to walk on this maze thing made of spiderwebs. It was fun (except for Aya, who''s afraid of heights). And hanging off one of the strands was a box. Oh! The kobolds! We said hi and fought them. Nat didn''t know about the food magic, so next cycle she''ll be experimenting. We''ll be able to compare notes, even if we can''t cook together. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! BUT! Lewis! Bonecrusher the Black! He now has a bigger role in the fights! Before, he kinda just sat at the back of the room and guarded the exit. Now he has a legit throne to stand on and he shoots magic out. Why does he have a throne? Because he''s in disguise as an elf!!! He''s only supposed to take on his dragon form after he gets hurt! Normally, when players aren''t around, he can switch back and forth. Which is really good! But when players get to the floor, he starts out as an elf and lures them into a false sense of security. Which sounds super fun. He seems to be having fun with it, too. ¡­I should really try to put events and stuff in some kind of order. I feel like what I''ve written for today is kinda all over the place. I''ll do better next cycle. Maybe. Oh well. Tonight we''re between Floors 57 and 58. We were gonna stop before Floor 57, but Mika and Samurai went to check it to see if it''s easy or hard to beat. They said it was super creepy and could we just skip it please. The floor is pitch black except for the glow of the entrance and exit, and there''s skittering sounds. We teleported over it. It''s only the second time I''ve really used teleport here. I''m kinda reluctant to. I feel like the level is too high, and if anyone notices they''ll take it away. But I really don''t want to know what made those skittering sounds. So yeah, tomorrow we only have three floors to beat! Woo! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 1 (Athena) The catgirls of Floor 60 felt a tug of magic as players stepped through the entrance. Athena smiled, sliding the reset button into her pocket before taking a seat behind her desk. It took a few minutes for the players to reach the shops, and then a few more for them to decide what to do. One of them, a black woman with bright yellow hair, walked into Athena''s shop. She looked around, her eyes quickly landing on the spy. "Hello," Athena said, smiling blandly. "How may I help you?" "Is this the last floor?" the player asked. "Yes." "Where''s the reset button?" Athena shook her head. "Can''t tell you that without payment." The player nodded curtly. "How much?" "One birthday cake." That gave her a pause. She frowned, almost said something, then walked out of the shop. Athena grinned to herself. The price for the cake was a poison dart potent enough to kill a dragon. The price for a poison dart was 200 red balloons. The price for balloon packs (assorted colors, of course) was 3 gold each. Which left two catgirls out of the stupid fetch quest. Their job was to trip whoever was holding the cake. Instead of heading for the diner, the players all came into Athena''s shop. A white girl with green hair led them. The green-haired player walked straight up to the counter, opened her inventory, and pulled out a cake. "Will this work?" she asked cheerfully. Athena stared at it for half a second in shock, then shook her head. "No, sorry, this is just a cake." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. "Oh, right, sure," the player said, pulling a bottle of chocolate syrup out of her inventory. She pulled the cake closer, focused, and carefully drizzled the words "Happy Birthday" on the cake. Meanwhile, a red-haired player pulled a dozen tiny candles out of her inventory and held them out. The green-haired player stuck them artfully around the cake, then turned it and pushed it back to Athena. She beamed. "There! Birthday cake! Is it your birthday?" Athena blinked at it. This was not going to plan. How had she gotten a cake? Full cakes weren''t available at the diner. "Does it work?" the yellow-haired woman asked. "No," Athena said, losing her indecision. "Sorry, but you need a birthday cake from the diner." "But they don''t have birthday cakes at the diner," the green-haired girl said. "Only chocolate and vanilla. Birthday cake batter is special. And besides, cake is sold by the slice, so we''d have to buy six slices to make a full cake, meaning it wouldn''t be as pretty." "How do you know all that?" Athena demanded. A white-haired woman spoke up. "She knows a lot about food. Now give us the damn button." Athena looked at the group, sensing something wrong about them. Slowly, she pulled the button out of her pocket and slid it over. The yellow-haired woman took it. "Thank you." There were a few more thanks as they left, going back to the center of the plaza. Watching them suspiciously, Athena pulled a fork out of her inventory and took a bite of the cake. It was a really good cake. The cycle ended. Gold magic washed through the dungeon, sending the players away. The cake stayed. Athena took another bite. Nyx came out of the diner, running for Athena''s shop. "What happened?" the chef demanded, wrenching the door open. She saw the cake and froze. "What¡­" "Try it, it''s good," Athena said, taking another bite. Nyx pulled a fork out of her own inventory and walked over, frowning at the cake. She took a bite, and her eyes widened. "Told you it was good." Nyx looked down at it. "No, this is too good. It''s perfect. And it isn''t straight box mix, either. It has¡­ orange? Maybe lemon?" "So?" Athena asked. "What does a perfect cake mean?" "Whoever made it has an insanely high chef level," Nyx said. "And it wasn''t bought, or it would come in slices. Are we sure those players weren''t secretly catgirls?" Athena took another bite, watching the other four girls make their way to her shop. "No. We aren''t sure of that at all." Cycle 2 (1) Attention all Players: Congrats on reaching Cycle 2! You have pressed the reset button [1] times! Get going! People have requested information on what''s going on "behind the scenes", as it were. I won''t spoil everything, but I will let you know this: After 30 cycles pass here, everyone in all the dungeons will be sent to a new world. You will be placed in a city or town with everything set up. Players will have a choice of fun jobs, from merchant to tavern owner to town mayor. The winners (if they choose) can be kings or queens of their own city-state. With the absolute authority that entails. They''ll be able to choose where the city will be, and they''ll be able to name the city and a handful of towns around it. The group that comes in second will have that choice, but with single cities in a smaller country. That should be enough to fuel your imaginations for a while. Good luck getting to the button! Director ***** Dear Diary, Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. New cycle! The first cycle ended! Woo! We''re elves now, and we''re in parties of five. Avi and I are with Kimi, Y and Mika. Lily and Staab are with Aya and the Sams. The Sams volunteered to not push the button last cycle, so their group has to beat us to Floor 60 this time. Well, they don''t have to, but if they don''t we''ll just be hanging out there with nothing to do. Avi and I volunteered to not push the button this cycle, so yeah. Only eight people can push the button before the cycle resets, I don''t know if I mentioned that. This morning the Director sent a message to all the players. She said if we win enough times we can be rulers of cities. But that would mean we''d all be split up. I don''t want to split our group up. If I had it my way, we''d all be put in a single town. Not a big city, just a little town. And the next closest town would be the kobold''s town. That way we could join them for parties. I think I''d make it a town on a beach, next to a forest. That way we could have all the fish we want, but we could also explore the forest. And of course the wolves would all live in the forest, running around to their heart''s content. I liked running a diner. I think I''d ask for a diner. I don''t know what Avi would want to do. Maybe be a vet or something. We''ve never really talked about what we want to do after the dungeon. We never knew what was going to happen, or if we were just stuck in here forever. But now we know there is a future. And we''ll get to choose what to do. I wonder¡­ if I''ll be able to have kids. We can''t here. There''s a couple theories about why, but the end result is that we can''t. Not that anyone would want to, given everyone''s job here is either to kill or die repeatedly. But anyways. I can''t wait for Cycle 30. I hope whoever wins wants the prize. But first we have to get through Cycle 2! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (2) Dear Diary, Tomorrow we''re gonna kidnap Lex and Tim! I can''t wait to have velociraptor pets again! Mika has, once again, reminded us that we can buy pets in the shop. But screw that! I want a tempermental dinosaur that loves fish balls! Y''no, it''s weird that "meatball" is one word, but "fish ball" is two. Why is that? Who decided that balls of meat were so great they should have their own word, but not balls of fish? Yeah, I know fish balls aren''t all that common (at least not in California), but they should still be condensed into one word like meatballs. And that is my official stance on edible balls. Thank you. I will not be taking questions at this time. Aaaanyways, I hope Lex and Tim are high enough level to survive through the dungeon. I know they went down a few levels when they were transferred over, but they should be ok. Oh! Maybe we could get them armor! That would be so cute!!! I don''t know if they''d wear it, but we can try! Tomorrow I''ll ask the blacksmith catgirl here to make a raptor-sized suit of¡­ chainmail might pinch their feathers. It''ll have to be plate mail or leather. I''ll ask for plate mail. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Ok, why is "chainmail" one word, but not "plate mail"? That makes absolutely no sense! Who decided what words to make into one word while leaving others two?? Whoever it was, they were insane. Or possibly just a troll. Either way, I''d like to file a formal complaint against them. I need to learn a sensible language that makes sense and write in that. That way I won''t have to worry about things like words not being¡­ cohesive. Or something. Although that might not be possible, since everyone here pretty much only speaks English. The only person I''ve heard speak not-English is Mika, when she sings in Spanish. She knows a lot of Spanish songs. And Staab speaks French, but he learned it in school. He doesn''t know it, he just uses French curse words and occasional random phrases. So yeah, looks like I won''t be learning any new languages. In high school I took American Sign Language as my language class, but I don''t remember much. I just had fun waving my arms around and making exaggerated facial expressions. But that''s based on English, so writing it out would be the same. Mostly. Oh, Kimi and Y want to collect sulfur when we get to the floor they exploded last cycle. Y wants to see what happens if they throw some into a slime, and Kimi wants to make bombs. I kiiiiiiiiinda want to know what it tastes like. A little. For science. I mean, I know it''ll probably taste terrible, but hey, worst that can happen is I die and respawn back a few floors. Mika wants to try making exploding arrowheads. And Avi just wants everyone to be careful when playing with the highly volatile and toxic substance. He''s so sweet, I love him. Anyways, I need sleep for dinosaurs tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (3) The Director looked up as an alert flashed. Apparently two monsters had somehow gotten off their floor. She pulled up a screen, telling it to show the miscreants. Two little velociraptors were hopping merrily down a flight of stairs, just ahead of a group of players. The players didn''t seem worried or alarmed. They got to the next Floor''s entrance, and one of the players gave a command. The raptors jumped to his shoulders. He patted them before walking onto the Floor. The Director watched with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. She debated respawning the velociraptors, but decided there was a better option. One that would make the players never try taking monsters off their Floor again. ***** Dear Diary, Lex and Tim were super surprised that things are different now. Seeing them float around the no-gravity room with clear confusion on their faces was adorable. They adjusted super fast, tho. It took them less time to figure out how to get around than it took me. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! I think woolly mammoth must be a velociraptor delicacy, given how voracious they became after one bite. I wish I could taste it, but that would be a whole deal. Things vanish when we kill them, so I''d have to cut a part off without killing the mammoth, and that''s cruel. And eating raw meat isn''t recommended, so the poor mammoth would have to suffer with a leg chopped off or something while I cook it. Yes it''s my job as a player to murder things, but murder is not torture. My group focuses on killing things as quickly and painlessly as possible. Anyways, we teleported over the leech floor, had tea with Jenny, and spent a while running around on a beach looking for shells before stopping at the campsite. Tim loved shell hunting. Lex isn''t a fan of water, but did ok. Oh, when we took them off their floor, their HP went down to 1. It didn''t drop, it''s just set to 1 now. So if anything ever hits them, they''ll be gone. But hey, that just means we have to keep a super close eye on them! Not a problem. Especially since Avi has them basically trained to perfection. Oh, this place doesn''t have keys. To get the raptors through any entrance or exit we just have to keep them close to us, and the magic doesn''t see them. It took us a couple minutes to figure that out. Mika is the one that suggested it. Nothing we tried was working, so she sarcastically said maybe hugging them would work. I bet she regrets her sarcasm. We got here a little bit after Aya''s group. We were only planning on meeting up on catgirl floors, so finding them here was cool. The Sams thought it was funny that we had Lex and Tim with us. Aya just smiled and shook her head. Staab said them being with us made this dungeon feel more like home, which was sweet. Lily agrees with Mika that we should have left them on Floor 11. We will never leave them behind. Velociraptor pets forever! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (4) Dear Diary, Gingerbread people love onions. Who knew. Not cooked onions, just raw onions. I suspect it has something to do with how they''re made of sugar, so they wouldn''t be able to taste sweet things. They also thought Lex and Tim were the most adorable things ever. They love them. Mika suggested leaving the velociraptors there, and honestly next time we might. Not because of her, but because two floors after the gingerbread village is the dracoraptor floor. The dracoraptors have always been weirdly nasty to the velociraptors. This time we were trying to keep them apart, but it didn''t work. And thus, I''m sorry to say, Lex and Tim are back on Floor 11. It was fun while it lasted. But! Now we don''t have to worry about them! And we still have to figure out how to get the giant glyptodon off its floor! Tomorrow we''ll be at the catgirl floor at about noon. Or maybe even before then. Mika messaged Aya, and we decided to not stop. Since we''d be wasting a whole half a day. Maybe in two cycles we can take it easy, but not until everyone has two button pushes. Well, we''ll stop for lunch. Obviously. Not stopping for food would be rude. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Maybe I can request the catgirl make meatballs and ranch balls for me. Like, just give her the recipe and ask her to make a dozen or so each cycle for me to pick up. Mika and Kimi asked the blacksmith on Floor 10 to make them special weapons every cycle, so why not ask for food? I wonder if I should ask the blacksmith to make something for me. Actually, no, I should ask the mage to enchant something for me. Like¡­ I wonder if she could enchant a titanium rod to give healing spell buffs. That would be cool. On the one hand, it would be expensive. On the other hand, money means nothing to catgirls. I could probably pay them in sushi and it''d be fine. Actually, I should ask all the catgirls here what all their favorite foods are. Just in case it''s ever needed. Oh, we decided to stop for the night just before the geyser field. Y went down and got a bunch of sulfur for him and Kimi to "play with". Avi and I have decided to not share a cabin with them tonight. We''re probably far enough ahead of the other players that no one will show up and want to share a cabin. Even if they do, I won''t regret not being in a cabin with a 50/50 chance to explode. ¡­ ¡­¡­. Ok, make that a 100% of explosion. Well, it didn''t explode, but it is burning down. ¡­Mika is covering the cabin in snow. ¡­Not on fire but it''s still smoking. ¡­Kimi and Y are moving to another cabin. Wellp, not my problem. I''m gonna go to sleep and pretend that never happened. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (5) Dear Diary, The catgirl chef on Floor 30, Penny, made fish patties with lemon on them over mashed potatoes and it was amazing. I made a couple things with the fish out of sushi, but I never tried to press it together and fry it like normal fish. Penny made some kind of sauce to make it stick together, I think the base was just egg white, it was amazing. I keep thinking about how delicious it was, I have to get the recipe next time I¡¯m there. I gave her the designs for a pasta maker, and she says next time she''ll have salmon linguine for us. Floor 30 is now my favorite catgirl floor. Well, after Floor 50, which is the one from our dungeon. Anyways, we stopped after Floor 34, the one with the air elementals. Oh yeah! I have to start recording what all the floors are now! Ok. Floor 31 has suuuuper big and fluffy wolves. I think I mentioned that last cycle. It also has moose. I''m not sure if they''re giant moose, or if moose are always that hekkin¡¯ big. Last cycle Staab said they were a little bit bigger than what he remembered, and he''s the only one of us who''s seen a real live moose. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Floor 32 is a rocky canyon place. It''s not really a maze, since you can walk on the tops of the canyons, but there are similarities. There''s deep cracks in the ceiling, too. And in those cracks? Spider people! They like mango smoothies. There''s also normal spiders, which I thought was weird until Kimi said that would be like thinking a catgirl having a normal cat as a pet was weird. There''s also a couple swarms of biting gnats. Avi said they''re not people like the ants and mosquitoes were. He tried casting a spell to talk with them, and they''re not a hive mind. They also didn''t respond like intelligent creatures. Avi thinks they might have originally been fish, and I have no reason to doubt him. Floor 33 is¡­ a water floor. There are swarms of piranhas and sirens and things with tentacles that grab you if you get too close to any rock. There are lots of rocks. But¡­ the exit is underwater. I do not know how to swim. I mean, I''ve picked up a few things from the time I spent as a shark and an otterkin, but I still mostly just flail around. Mika put a rope around me and pulled me through the floor. Until I drowned. They got to the stairwell and recalled me from Floor 30. I really need to figure out how to hold my breath and swim. Anyways, Floor 34 is the air elemental floor, taken straight from our old dungeon. It''s got sand, it''s got rocks, it''s got snakes, and it''s got a volleyball net on one side. We didn''t stop to play volleyball. Mostly because we''d totally lose. So yeah! That''s it up to here. I think tomorrow night we''re aiming to be on Floor 40. The diner owner there didn''t let me cook anything last time, we''ll see if she''s changed her mind. I got some hot chocolate from the lake, and I want to see if I can make pudding out of it or something. But then I might be too tired to cook. We''ll have to see! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (6) Dear Diary, Yep, the Floor 40 catgirl is not going to let me use her kitchen. Not even to reheat the chocolate. Oh well. It''s ok, I am pretty tired. And I need to record what the floors are! Where was I yesterday¡­ Ok! Floor 35! Floor 35 is an autumn forest, it''s super pretty. There''s a group of hobgoblins, but the main problem with the floor is bees. There''s like five beehives, and they''re super territorial. The hobgoblins say that the honey gives a super good buff to speed and strength, so when we''re going slower we''ll try to get some. Right now there''s just too many bees to fight through to get any. Floor 36 is technically a water floor. But the water is only like three feet deep in some places. Big trees grow out of the water. Some of the trees have been cut down and made into a dam by giant beavers. There are also giant otters. Mika says if we kidnapped a giant otter she wouldn''t grumble (they''re that cute), so Avi and I gave them a bunch of fish and we''ll try to snuggle them next cycle. Just to see how it goes. Floor 37 is the floor where we have to kill goblins to get five keys. Honestly not my favorite floor. Or Avi''s. We asked them if they could kill each other and then sell the keys to us, and they said they''d think it over. I hope they find some way of killing each other painlessly. That would be nice. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Floor 38 is the dire wolves! Siri and Bear and Linda and Floofles and Balto and Wolfie McWolfpants. The whole pack. They were suuuuuper thrilled to see us, more than usual. I think they''re bored. I mean, in the old dungeon they were always kidnapped and pampered at the start of each cycle. They''re used to being showered in love and attention. But now no one''s around to do that. The kobolds are down on Floor 54, which is too far to take them. We fed them, and I think next cycle we''ll have to spend a while brushing them. Just so they don''t forget that they''re loved. That would be sad. Anyways, Floor 39 is the people with no skin, bones or muscle. They''re just blood veins and organs held together with magic. It''s¡­ silly. It goes straight through "creepy" territory and out the other side. Whoever designed them was trying way too hard. The people are nice. They kinda remind me a little bit of the yetis, but less stuck-up. Very calm and formal. They just want to be left alone to read poetry, mostly. Mika told them she writes songs, and that Aya writes poetry, so they might trade poetry books in the future. Which gets us to Floor 40. With the catgirl who won''t let me cook. I''m not bitter about that at all, nope. ¡­Maybe I could get Samurai to charm her into letting me use it. That would be slightly unethical, though. But only a little bit? Nah, not worth it. In two days I''ll be on Gigi''s floor, and I can cook all I want there. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (7) Admin 6 watched his group. Everyone else watched as well, but that was ok. Admin 2 had provided popcorn. The glyptodon was having a very bad time. Avi was on its back, trying to control it with a bridle. No one knew where the bridle came from, but regardless it wasn''t working. Mika and Y were behind the monster, prodding it through the maze. Kimi was teleporting frantically around, looking for the exit. Nikki was trying to calm the giant creature down with random vegetables. The maze was Admin 4''s creation. The dark walls were sticky and weeped blood. It had a group of elves living in it with the ability to phase through the walls. The elves were watching the party from a safe distance. Finally Kimi spotted the exit. The glyptodon was prodded, and it bashed against the walls in an attempt to knock Avi off. Nikki, Y and Kimi climbed on as it got to the exit. The exit sensed four players, and opened right up. The prehistoric creature trotted down the stairs, bolted across the campsite, and trotted down the second set of stairs to Floor 46''s entrance. It stopped, seeing an open field. Butterflies flitted about over lovely flowers. A cat strolled along the wall. The glyptodon stepped through the entrance, then galloped. Admin 6 ate another handful of popcorn as Admin 5''s favorite floor was utterly demolished by the rampaging creature. It seemed immune to the sleeping charm. Avi and Nikki were clinging to the glyptodon for dear life, but the other two were quickly yeeted off. Mika was running for the exit. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Admin 4 leaned back to look at Admin 6. "I wondered what you meant by ''entertaining''. This is great." Admin 6 grinned. ***** Dear Diary, We did it. We got a glyptodon onto the lavender floor. Holy cow it was a lot of work. Today we learned that being trampled to death by a giant prehistoric creature is not fun. I mean, we probably could have guessed that, but now we know for sure. Anyways. I said I was gonna record what all the floors are so here we go¡­ Floor 41 is an ice cream floor with yetis. The yetis here are nice. They''re¡­ sweet. And cool. There, I did the puns. Floor 42 is a water floor, but it has big rock formations with lots of caves, and we have to find two halves of an amulet to open the exit. There are crabs that live in the caves and snip anything that gets too close. And there are sharks swimming around ready to bite anyone who stays in the water too long. Floor 43 is a cotton candy maze with jello slimes. Slimes are evil and I hate them. Floor 44 has the glyptodons. Floor 45 is another maze, but no slimes. It has elves living in the walls. We didn''t see them this time. Oh, the walls are sticky and have blood all over them. I don''t know where the blood comes from. It''s kinda gross. Aaaaaand Floor 46 is the lavender floor that makes everyone sleepy. We stopped there. I am super tired from the magic and wrangling an unhappy glyptodon all afternoon, so¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (Kimi) Kimi followed Y into the diner''s kitchen. Nikki and Avi were standing over a bowl of pudding, debating what to do. Nikki saw them and smiled. "Y! You''re not afraid to poison yourself in the name of Science, right?" Y smiled back. "Not usually. What type of poison? How strong is it?" "We don''t know," Avi said. "It must be something specifically made for the chocolate." "It''s not salmonella," Nikki added, offering spoons to Kimi and Y. "That would have boiled out. But the notification keeps popping up that I''m resisting ''River Poison'' when I take a bite." "When it enters your mouth or when you swallow?" Y asked, moving to look into the bowl. "Swallow." "If you boiled it down would that have made it stronger?" Kimi asked. "That''s not how it works with potions," Nikki shrugged. "It is something from a different Admin, though," Y mused. "Different rules may apply." "True." "Does it taste strange in any way?" he asked. "No." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. "Doesn''t smell off, either," Avi added. Y pushed his glasses into place before digging into the bowl with his spoon. "For Science¡­" He took a bite. "Tastes amazing, absolutely worth being poisoned¡­" Kimi waited. They all watched as Y swallowed the pudding. He paused, looking a bit confused before turning red. "Ah. I¡­ wasn''t aware that qualified as a poison." He took a step back. "Don''t worry, I''m not about to die. Kim, you would do better at explaining, I need to be elsewhere. Good-bye." Y teleported away. Kimi frowned. "Ok¡­" "Weird," Nikki said. She held the bowl out to Kimi, shrugging. "Want to try it?" "Why not." She dug in with her spoon and took a big bite. The pudding was amazing. Rich and creamy, with just a hint of raspberry under the chocolate flavor. Momentarily forgetting it was poisonous, Kimi took another bite. And then it hit her. She broke into a cold sweat, a shiver running from her toes to the top of her head. She swallowed hard, and her ponytail briefly turned into flames. "Oh." "What is it?" Avi asked. Kimi took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to calm herself. "It''s an aphrodisiac." "A what?" Nikki immediately pushed the bowl at him, trying and failing to smile innocently. "Nothing dangerous, you should try it!" Another shiver went through Kimi, and she put her hands on her knees. "I don''t know, might be too strong for an innocent little dewdrop. At least explain what it is first." "He''s not-" "Nikki, I''ve had these before and flipping hell this is a whole new level." "Spicy drugs?" Avi guessed. "Maybe you feel it super strong cuz you had two spoonfuls," Nikki said. Kimi''s hair caught fire again. She grabbed the bowl. "Nope, this is mine now. Giving it to Avi when you''re immune would be mean. I have to go find my husband." She ran for the inn. Cycle 2 (8) Dear Diary, We made it to Floor 50! We actually got here at like noon, and decided to stay. So I got to cook! Mostly I wanted to play with the hot chocolate from the river. It turned into pudding suspiciously easily. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s my chef level or the magical properties of the chocolate, but it did exactly what I wanted it to do. I¡¯m tempted to try making a cake and truffles out of it, just to see if it does the same thing. It¡¯s poisonous, but not a dangerous poison. Actually, I wonder if dying and respawning would get rid of it. I¡¯d bet¡­ Hmm. Probably not. The poison would be gone, but the effects would linger. Sadly, I can¡¯t test it because I keep resisting the poison. And Avi can¡¯t try it cuz Kimi took the bowl and ran off with it. And I can¡¯t ask Kimi to try dying because¡­ Well, she¡¯s having too much fun with it. I think. I haven¡¯t seen her in a couple hours. They didn¡¯t show up for dinner. Anyways, floors! Floor 47 is from our dungeon. It used to be Floor 95, the water floor with a kraken and sharks. Nothing new. Nothing exciting. Floor 48 is exciting. There are six dragons who live there, and pretty much nothing else. They¡¯ve got caves in the walls that they live in, but the floor is just short grass. Not even tall grass for hiding in. You walk in, the dragons come out, and everyone fights. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. It¡¯s exciting because this time we asked if there was a way around the fighting. Y told them about giving Jenny tea, and they were like ¡°yes, give us all your gold¡±. Avi asked what they would do with the gold, and that made them pause. So Kimi and I introduced them to the joys of marble racing. Next cycle we¡¯ll be able to have a marble race with them! Woo! If one of us wins, we get to go through. But if one of them wins, they get to try to eat us. A fair arrangement, I think. Floor 49 is a water floor. It seems like there are a lot of water floors here. Or maybe any floor with water on it I¡¯m calling a ¡°water floor¡±... Anyways, there¡¯s a ghost pirate ship that floats around, and an island with sirens in the middle. The ghosts are nice enough. They really get into character. As far as they¡¯re willing to say, they 100% were pirates who terrorized the Caribbean in 1650. Or whenever. I guess I can respect not wanting to break character in front of strangers, but I hope they act normal when they¡¯re alone. The sirens are just five girls who like singing. Avi kinda doesn¡¯t like talking to them, but just because he has bad memories from his time as a siren. Mika wants to trade songs with them. If she keeps asking people to trade songs, this place will fill with music by the time we reach Cycle 10. I like music, so I think that would be cool. Oh, Aya and the Sams and Lily and Staab got here late last night. So they spent the whole day here. A group of players got here mid-afternoon, and another just after dinner. So we¡¯re the fastest group, but not by a lot. That¡¯s good to know. I like being able to hang out and talk, but it did slightly stress me out. I didn¡¯t want to talk so much that we fall behind. Falling behind would be bad. We have to win, after all! That¡¯s why we were sent here! So I¡¯m gonna get a good night¡¯s rest, and we¡¯ll get through a ton of floors tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 2 (9) Aya narrowed her eyes at the spy catgirl. ¡°Tell me where the button is or I¡¯ll have Lily force the answer out of you.¡± Lily smiled, purple magic forming around her hands. ¡°You can¡¯t,¡± the catgirl said smugly. ¡°We¡¯re immune.¡± ¡°No you aren¡¯t,¡± Aya said. The catgirl leaned on the counter. ¡°How do you know?¡± Aya narrowed her eyes. This spy was testing her. ¡°We¡¯ve done it before.¡± ¡°When? Why?¡± ¡°Does it matter?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Lily adjusted her stance, ready to cast charm magic. ¡°You don¡¯t want to do that,¡± the spy said, winking at Lily. ¡°Pro tip. One catgirl to another.¡± Aya froze. For a moment no one moved ¡°What are you talking about?¡± Staab finally asked. ¡°I¡¯m not a catgirl. We¡¯re not catgirls.¡± ¡°You might not be, but these two were,¡± the spy said. She smiled at Aya and Lily. ¡°Here¡¯s the price for the button: Tell me how you got here.¡± ¡°On foot,¡± Aya snapped. ¡°Nope.¡± ¡°In a car,¡± Samuel said. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Samurai chimed in. ¡°On a train.¡± The spy¡¯s smile turned cold. ¡°No. Tell me how you became players.¡± Aya glared. ¡°Oh for the love of-¡± Lily shot her hand out, grabbing the catgirl¡¯s wrist. ¡°Give Me The Button Now.¡± The catgirl stared blankly at her, opening her inventory without knowing what she was doing. Half a second later, the reset button dropped to the counter. ¡°Thank you,¡± Lily said, letting go to swipe the button. She handed it to Staab, smiling at the spy. ¡°Sweetie, here¡¯s a pro tip: you¡¯re outclassed here in every way. Don¡¯t mess with us. You will regret it.¡± The spy watched her turn and walk out the door. Aya watched the spy. Suddenly the spy locked eyes with Aya. ¡°War it is.¡± ***** Dear Diary, Here we go! Floor 51: Slushie river. Candy fish that jump out of the river, and candy bears that wait on the shores. Not gummy bears, hard candy bears. Floor 52: Spiderweb maze. Very pretty. Floor 53: Maze with slimes. Boooo. Floor 54: KOBOLDS AND LEWIS! Woo! Floor 55: Flying ants, spiders, and giant worm thing. Meh. Floor 56: Painted desert with rainbow buzzards and non-rainbow goblins. The goblins are cool people, they have a farm where they grow some of their own food. They don¡¯t trust magic. Floor 57: Who knows! It¡¯s pitch black and scary sounding. We skip it. Floor 58: A desert made out of baking cocoa. Rope candy shoots out of the ¡°sand¡± and drags you under. It¡¯s actually kinda fun. Floor 59: Maze made out of mirrors. The reflections come to life if you stay in sight of one mirror long enough.And they attack, because politely giving directions to the exit is too much to ask. And Floor 60: Catgirl floor and final boss floor. There! All recorded. Tonight we¡¯re between Floor 57 and Floor 58. It got too late to continue, even though we were so close. Samuel said their group is going to sleep after they push the button, so they might already be¡­ wherever they were sent. I don¡¯t know where that is. Anyways, tomorrow for sure the cycle is gonna reset, so I just wanted to get all that down before I forget. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Audiobook is live! That''s right, Volume 2 of Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a Lvl 100 Catgirl Chef: The Exciting Diary of an Accidentally OP Formr NPC Catgirl! is now available on Audible! Reba Buhr did an amazing job at narrating all the nonsense and drama I put those poor, innocent catgirls through... Two chapters are now available for free on Patreon as a preview, in case you need to listen to a couple chapters! You can also get full, edited ebooks of both volumes there, if you truly prefer reading. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Once Volume 3 is done I''ll be handing everything over to Podium Publishing, and at that point I''ll have to stub here. But until then I''m just gonna stick with Patreon''s shop for all my ebook needs. Like the Admins, I am adverse to doing effort, which is what publishing elsewhere would require. Nya. Cycle 3 (Kimi) Gold magic surrounded Kimi, and the cycle reset. She found herself back in her single room at the inn on Floor 1, a notification asking if she wanted to customize anything. She hit no, looking at her reflection in the mirror. This cycle the assigned race was half-dragon. Kimi liked being a half-dragon, the wings were- She froze half an instant before a scream echoed through the building. Wrenching her door open, she ran to the end of the hallway and slammed herself into Y¡¯s door. It splintered from the force, letting her stumble in. Her arm and shoulder hurt, but she barely noticed as she ran to him. Y was on the floor, trying to scream as he dug thick claws into his snout. The claws on his thumbs had pierced the flesh under his chin, and blood poured out as he tried to break his jaw off. ¡°Y!¡± Kimi yelled, dropping to her knees. She grabbed his wrists, but his fingers kept tightening. ¡°Y, listen! Look at me! Y!¡± He didn¡¯t notice her. Claws tore black scales off his long snout, showing white bone. He continued trying to scream. Kimi felt panic enter her mind. There was nothing she could do. No way to help him. Tears ran from her eyes as she shouted his name again, trying to get him to hear. Suddenly green magic surrounded him, and he fell asleep. His hands relaxed, but that only let her see the extent of the damage. Kimi gently pulled his hands away from his face, and a healing spell covered him. It stopped the bleeding, but the cracks in his bone and missing scales remained. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Kimi finally looked towards the door. Nikki and Avi were in the doorway, everyone else behind them. Nikki took half a step into the room. ¡°Sorry, I- Sleep seemed good?¡± Kimi wiped away her tears. ¡°Yeah, thanks.¡± Avi followed Nikki and fixed the door behind him. Or at least made the door look like it was fixed. He nervously watched Y. ¡°Should¡­ we stay here this cycle?¡± Nikki asked. ¡°Or ask the Admin what to do?¡± Avi suggested. Kimi shook her head. ¡°Thanks, but I can handle this.¡± ¡°Are you sure?¡± Nikki asked. Kimi looked at Y, her hands tightening around his. She felt a rapid heartbeat and wasn¡¯t sure who it belonged to. ¡°Yeah.¡± Avi glanced at Nikki, then back at Kimi. ¡°What happened?¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ about how he died.¡± She adjusted her grip on Y¡¯s hands again, hoping he wouldn¡¯t mind her telling them. ¡°There was an earthquake, and a beam fell from the ceiling. He was under a table, but it broke through and¡­ hit him in the face. Not hard enough to kill him, only enough to break his nose and teeth. But it pinned him down, and he suffocated. Next thing he knew he was waking up as a kobold, and he says it felt like the beam was still there.¡± Nikki knelt down next to Kimi, putting her arm around her in a loose hug. ¡°He¡¯s trying to get it off?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Kimi shuddered. ¡°This isn¡¯t the first time I¡¯ve seen him claw his face off, but usually¡­ Usually he wakes up and it was just a bad dream.¡± ¡°We should ask the Admin to change his race,¡± Avi said. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be a big deal.¡± ¡°You should go,¡± Kimi said softly. ¡°Let the others know we¡¯re staying here this cycle. Don¡¯t worry about us.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± Nikki asked. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll talk to the Admin. We¡¯ll be ok.¡± Nikki got to her feet. ¡°Ok. If you change your mind we¡¯ll come right back.¡± Y stirred in his sleep, his face and hands twitching. ¡°Thanks. We¡¯ll be ok,¡± Kimi repeated. Cycle 3 (1) Dear Diary, I''m in a team with Avi this cycle! We got the option of being in groups of two or four. Everyone from our dungeon went with groups of two. It''s nice being just the two of us. We like all our friends, but it''s good to spend time with just us. It''s been a couple cycles since the last time we were alone. Avi says we should take the velociraptors and leave them with the gingerbread people. I agree. But I wonder if we can kidnap anything from just below the gingerbread people. I like having pets with us, especially since we kinda aren''t really supposed to. I''m usually not a rule-breaking rebel, but Avi makes kidnapping random creatures so much fun. Oh! I''m not green this cycle! I went with blue, so I have water magic! I''m gonna seriously try learning how to swim. It wasn''t ever a super big deal before, but now that one of the floor exits is underwater, I need to be able to get to it myself. And there are no other reasons for my color change. None at all. Nope. Iiiiin other news¡­ I finally found out why Y never wanted to be a half-dragon. We''re all half-dragons this cycle, no way around it. Apparently he suffocated to death, and the snout shape reminds him of that. I understand why he wouldn''t ever choose to be a dragon or kobold. Anyways, he freaked out and tried to break his face off. It wasn''t pretty. Kimi was gonna ask the Admin to change their race, and I hope it''s allowed. I might write her tomorrow and ask what happened. It''s not really any of my business, but they''re my friends. Our friends. I''m worried about them. I hope they¡¯re ok. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Goodnight, Dungeon.
. . . Admin 6 sent a request, and soon gold magic covered him. He was transported into a chair in the Director''s office, facing her across a mahogany desk. "Yes?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Admin 6 straightened up. "I would like to request you change the race for two of my players." "Denied," the Director said flatly. "Please," he snapped. "One of my players has torn his face in half, he cannot handle being a half-dragon." "One? Then why is the request for two?" she asked. "It''s for him and his wife." "Wife?" "Yes, I¡­ made one of the shared inventories be between two people, and called it a spousal inventory. This couple had one. I don''t see how that matters, when one of my players is constantly casting sleep on another to prevent self-harm." "Did any of the other admins have an arrangement like that?" the Director asked. "I don''t care," Admin 6 told her. "Please will you allow me to change the race of two of my players?" She watched him for a few seconds. "Fine. I''ll change them to neko, but they will be locked on Floor 1 for the duration of the cycle." "Thank you." "The restriction doesn''t bother you?" He was about to say no but paused. He looked down for a moment. "They''ve already spent a full day on Floor 1 trying to calm down. With that delay it''s unlikely they''d get to the button in time. This cycle is already lost for them, so they might as well be stuck somewhere." She accepted that. "Tell them they''ll be stuck every time they need a race change. Half-dragon will come around four more times, so if they don''t want to forfeit five cycles they need to get over it." Admin 6 nodded, knowing they wouldn''t mind at all. "I will. Thank you." She sent him back to his desk. Cycle 3 (2) Dear Diary, Last cycle, Mika asked the blacksmith here to make special weapons for her. She just got them, and says they''re perfect. Today I asked for a Rod of Defense. The catgirl says she can make it up to +5, so I''m gonna have a super defense bonk stick next cycle! I''d kinda prefer one that buffs magic, but the mage says she can only enchant wooden items, and I don''t know where to get good staffs. There''s more to a good bonk stick than just wood. Yeah, there are staffs available in the Floor 1 shop, but they''re basically broom handles. They''re ok, but not great. Oh, I keep forgetting I have water magic this cycle. I keep casting poison and sleep, then being surprised when it isn''t all that strong. I should try using black magic one cycle, and see how far I can teleport. I have used a couple water spells, but not a whole lot. We''ve only passed one water floor, so yeah. I remember I have water magic more on water floors. It kinda feels like I¡¯m being drawn to the water somehow, like the magic goes ¡°ooh, water, like me!¡± or something. It¡¯s hard to explain. I don¡¯t feel drawn to poison when I use green magic, but then there aren¡¯t whole floors covered in poison. Anyways, Kimi and Y have been turned into nekos and banned from leaving Floor 1. Which sucks, but is good. Kimi says she doesn''t mind. ¡­I haven''t heard from Y about it. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. In other news, tomorrow we get to kidnap dinosaurs! I hope their HP stays up, but I''m not gonna be surprised if it goes to 1 again. The glyptodon also went down to 1, so it must be a dungeon thing. If so, this dungeon has some very silly rules. It''s not that they aren''t fair, they''re just silly. We aren¡¯t supposed to kidnap things, so rules to stop us are all kinda fair. I wonder how many rules we unknowingly break. I mean, we weren¡¯t players on Cycle 1 in our old dungeon, so I don¡¯t know if there was like a booklet or something that was given out on what to do. For the theme park, everyone who got in at first got a list of rules to not break. We didn¡¯t, cuz the Admin didn¡¯t know if he was going to let us in or not. And then when we were let in, the catgirls just gave us the password. We only found out that setting murderous dracoraptors loose in the park was illegal after we did it. And that¡¯s a super specific thing, so I suspect the real rule was something broader. Like, blowing up a Floor is probably illegal. But we¡¯ve never seen a list of rules, so how are we supposed to know to not do it? Sure, some things we get a ¡°don¡¯t do this¡± feeling about, or a ¡°don¡¯t talk about this¡± feeling, but those can kinda be ignored. And since we¡¯re supposed to be Really Real Players, we should know all the rules. So if we break one, it looks like we¡¯re doing it on purpose. Which is totally not fair. ¡­Maybe I should ask the Admin if there¡¯s a list of rules somewhere. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 3 (3) Dear Diary, Lex and Tim¡­ have died. Quite tragically. They were walking with us through Floor 19, and a¡­ herd? Flock? ¡­Not really a swarm¡­ Avi says drove. A drove of gummy bears came right at us and targeted them. I did my best, but I don¡¯t have poison magic any more, so my anti-poison spells aren¡¯t as powerful. There were just too many of them. And the velociraptors only had one HP to begin with. They were poisoned to death. We were gonna leave them with the gingerbread people, but now we can¡¯t. Avi kinda wanted to go back up and get them again. We¡¯re between Floors 24 and 25 (didn¡¯t write last night, sorry), and when they died it was only eight floors to backtrack. In our old dungeon I totally would have done it. But here things are different. We¡¯re supposed to take the race seriously, and it¡¯s our turn to push the button again. So we have to get there. It¡¯s not the end of the world. We had our fun with the raptors, and next cycle we¡¯ll pick them up again. Maybe I can make some sort of muzzle for them. I don¡¯t want to tie their mouths shut, that¡¯s just mean, but a muzzle with mesh should work. Last cycle we were in a big group, so the gummy bears had more targets to choose from and didn¡¯t go for Lex or Tim. Hopefully next cycle we¡¯re in a big group. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Anyways, yeah, nothing much has happened in the past two days. We just got the raptors and had fun walking through the dungeon. And teleporting. We don¡¯t walk through the leech floor. Oh, we had tea with Jenny! Well, we had lunch there. And then today we had lunch at the catgirl floor. We decided to not stay there all afternoon. Instead we ran down and had dinner with the dracoraptors! We haven¡¯t been giving them enough attention lately. They¡¯re kinda mad at us. Not mad enough to kill, but they did gnaw on us a little. We aren¡¯t going to try sleeping there, because I¡¯m pretty sure the dracoraptors have ¡°kill someone in their sleep¡± on their bucket list. Avi wonders if we''ll get the transformation belts here. I''d take a shark one just to make swimming easier. He, of course, wants a dracoraptor belt again. I don''t know if being a dracoraptor here would be such a great idea. The belts kinda¡­ have a mind of their own. Like, they change instincts for you to be able to walk different, and what to do with feathers and stuff, but there''s more to it than that. Dracoraptors have these great big teeth, and those teeth come with an instinct to bite everything that moves. I don''t know, it''s kinda weird. Anyways, we should be at Floor 30 tomorrow afternoon, and we might be held up there for a day. Or two. Back home I might have said we''ll be there the rest of the cycle, but we kinda have to continue on. I wonder how well dairy keeps in my inventory here¡­ I''ll have to see! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 3 (Battles) Hash wanted, more than anything else, to hug a giant otter. She stalked the thing with her spell ready, waiting for it to get distracted. 9 was moving parallel to her, not nearly as quiet. He was supposed to draw the creature''s attention; stealth would be wasted. Finally the giant otter noticed him. It chirped (adorably), lifting onto its hind paws. Hash was sure its teeth and claws looked terrifying to 9, but all she saw was grey-brown fur. Deciding to do it, she darted forwards and wrapped her arms around the giant otter. It was so soft. It was also incredibly angry. It spun around, trying to dig claws into whatever was on its back. Hash let herself get thrown off. She rolled a few times, going down a hitpoint, and let the spell loose as soon as she was still. BOOM! A wave of sound hit the poor otter square in the chest, knocking it backwards. It squeaked angrily, dazed. 9 ran up with his battleax and decapitated it. The giant otter vanished, leaving behind a nice pile of loot. Hash healed herself as she got up. "Couldn''t help yourself, could you?" 9 asked, shaking his head. "They just look so soft," she shrugged. "I wish I could get the skin off one and make it into a sleeping bag." 9 looked horrified. "No. I''m not sleeping in a fur sleeping bag. What if there are fleas?" "Fine, sleep alone," Hash said, transferring dropped gold to her inventory. "You are truly evil." She smirked at him. "Just as well they don''t drop fur. You''d look all cold and pathetic by yourself and I''d have to get rid of it." "I wouldn''t ask you to, but¡­ fleas." She patted his arm. "I know, sweetie, I know." ***** Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Frog cursed, watching his goggles get sandblasted. Sure, it was better than getting his eyeballs sandblasted, but he''d hoped wearing goggles would let him see. He was wrong. Never mind. He heard Octavius cast a spell, felt the sand stop moving, and cleaved through the air with his greatsword. Frog felt resistance twice before the tip of his sword hit the ground. He grimaced, knowing it would take hours to get his sword sharp again. They had to find a better way of killing air elementals. "Two more down!" Ringo called. "One left!" "On it!" Kerav shouted. Lightning flashed. Frog pulled his goggles off and tried to spot the last air elemental. "Not on it!" Kerav shouted, covering his head with yellow wings as a sandstorm formed around him. Frog looked at Octavius. "Cooldown!" Octavius reported. "Ringo!" "I''d have to drop the snakes!" Behind Ringo, a dozen snakes were happily doing the conga around a rock pillar. Releasing them from charm magic would mean Frog would have to fight them, and he''d really rather not. "I''m sorry," he whispered to his greatsword, kissing the blade tenderly before giving a warcry and swinging through the sandstorm at the last air elemental. ***** "I''ve never drowned before," Fire said dreamily as Steel frantically pulled levers. The room was filling with water, and Steel didn''t know how to make it not do that. The last two cycles he hadn''t paid attention to the combination, and he wasn''t smart enough to figure it out on his own. "I wonder what it will feel like," Fire continued as she floated in the middle of the room. "Air gone, water rushing into the lungs¡­ It will probably burn. And then we will respawn and get to do it again. And again. And again." She kept going, but Steel tuned her out. He was pretty good at tuning her out. Especially when she got that tone of voice. "...Won''t it?" Fire asked. Steel looked at her, his toes no longer touching the bottom of the room. "Sorry?" "I said, it will be a fun experience, won''t it?" "Well¡­" Steel looked at the ceiling. "I don''t think so. I don¡¯t want to drown." Fire blinked in surprise. "Oh?" Steel shrugged. "You have a fire resistance potion?" she asked calmly. Steel nodded, pulled it out of his inventory, and drank it. He was very well-trained. Unfortunately. Fire waited five seconds, focused, and cast a spell. Water around them boiled, turning to vapor. Steel''s feet touched the floor as Fire focused her spell into basically a blowtorch. The solid stone door melted under the power of her magic. She turned to him and nodded once. Steel sloshed over, pulled his fist back, and punched the door with all the strength he had. Pieces of rock bounced down the stairway as the door exploded, followed by a flood of hot, grimy water. "Perfect," Fire said, flapping her wings. "I need to figure out how to open the door correctly," Steel sighed, punching the opening wider. ¡°No. This works,¡± she said, flying through. Steel followed on foot. Cycle 3 (4) Dear Diary, I¡­ don''t think we''ll be able to get to the button this cycle. We kinda spent two whole days on Floor 30. So yeah, we''re behind. I mean, we can teleport over a lot of floors and try to catch up, but I don''t know how much time we need to make up. It might be too much for us. It was worth it, though. I said in my other diary that I don''t want to write about what happens between Avi and me in private. I still don''t. But¡­ Well, after everything that happened on Cycle 57, things have been different between us. It finally feels like all that is behind us now. He was mad at me, and then sorry about being mad, and then we were here and never alone. And I was sorry, and then scared of doing anything to upset him, and then we were here. And now¡­ it''s ok. Bad things happened, but they won''t happen again. We got through it. We can be happy. Anyways. On Floor 37 there''s a group of goblins we have to kill until they drop five keys. We talked to them this morning, and they say they can collect keys to sell us so we don''t have to kill them. They already had five this cycle because they were trying to unlock the door and escape. They failed. But they sold the keys for five pizzas, so that made them happy. Next time they say they want ten pizzas, and told me what types. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I think it''s a fair trade. It''s not like pizzas are hard to make. Dying isn''t all that hard either, but there''s a feeling that we shouldn''t. It''ll be weird if we ever go somewhere else where death is permanent. We''ve gotten so used to it being a minor inconvenience. Like stubbing a toe. Sure it hurts, but give it a little bit and everything goes back to normal. No one wants to die, but if it happens it''s not a big deal. Not really. ¡­Wait. If the goblins want to get off the floor, we can help them do that! We know how to get creatures through exits! That might be even better than pizza for them. Next cycle I''ll ask which they prefer. I wonder if I should tell the Admin about it. I mean, he''d probably prefer if we just gave them pizza, and it''s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. But we are kinda trying to stay out of trouble. If I just say "hey, we''re gonna get the Floor 37 goblins down to Floor 38 kthxbai", he''ll either respond like "plz don''t" (which is basically an ok) or "no, that''s a terrible idea because¡­" (which we would listen to). Anyways, Floor 38 is where the dire wolves are. We decided to spend the night here after giving all the wolves a bath and good brushing. Siri wolf was getting matted, and Floofles was just covered in cobwebs. Both those things are bad. And of course we can''t just pamper two wolves in a pack, so they all got baths. There isn''t any river or anything on this floor, so it''s a good thing I went blue this cycle. Tomorrow morning I''m going to fry bacon for everyone''s breakfast. It''s not the best thing to give wolves, but they deserve treats. It''s ok to give them bacon once a cycle. But to get to tomorrow morning, I need sleep! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 3 (5) Dear Diary, Avi and I stopped at Floor 40 for an early lunch today, then continued on. We were only there like half an hour. The chef at the diner¡­ kinda doesn''t like me? Because I asked to use her diner twice. I didn''t this time, but she gave me this look like "oh no, you again". Which I don''t know how to feel about. I mean, pretty much everyone likes me. I''m a very likable person! I get that sometimes personalities clash, but chefs should like each other! Well, the hobgoblins didn''t like me, but that''s cuz they''re jerks. And the yetis don''t like me, but they''re weird so I don''t care. This catgirl seems like a nice person, and we could be friends if she just let me use her kitchen! Sheesh. Avi says I''m taking it too personally. He''s probably right. It just¡­ There are only six legit kitchens in this dungeon, and we only get to the floors they''re on about every other day, so her not letting me cook means there''s a space of like four days when I can only cook over a campfire. It''s torture! And yeah, Mika requested a grill type thing for me, but I''m used to a full kitchen with every type of cooking device I could ever want. I¡­ miss it. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. I miss my diner. I miss¡­ home. I miss marble races and kobold parties and the comb I used to brush my tail every morning. At least I have Avi. Without him I''d be seriously homesick. I wonder how Samantha is doing. I hope she''s having fun, and isn''t too lonely without Samuel and Samurai. ¡­Did I mention who everyone paired up with this cycle? I didn''t! Ok, so, I''m with Avi. Duh. Kimi is with Y, and they''re on Floor 1 turning our multi-room cabin thing into a nice place to live. Samuel is with Staab. Samurai is with Lily, which leaves Aya with Mika. This is the first time Lily and Samurai have ever been alone together, and I''m interested in seeing how they did when we meet up at the start of next cycle. We were allowed to go in groups of two or four, and at first Lily and Staab were gonna go as four with the Sams, but Samuel suggested a guy vs girl race. Samurai will never say no to a race against her brother, so the group split. I kinda hope Aya and Mika beat both groups to the button. That would just be funny. I wonder how shiny I could get my scales. I know the kobolds had some fancy scale-care routines, and half-dragon scales are the same as kobold scales. Nat and Mar had a big discussion about wax vs butter for scales once that was fascinating. They both had shiny scales, so both things work. I have two wings, maybe if I rubbed one down with wax and the other with butter I could figure out which was best. Then if I ever become a half-dragon again I''ll know what to do! Ok, it''s time for science! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 3 (6) Dear Diary, We kinda got stuck in the lavender field today. I mean, we could have left. But Avi wanted to befriend the cats, and I wanted to kill every single butterfly vampire thing, and before we knew it it was dark. Avi thinks if we want to befriend the cats we''ll have to spend at least three days there. I wouldn''t mind, but we are supposed to be racing. And yeah, effort now will pay off later, but it might be too much effort. Or, it might take too much time. Anyways. I''ve enjoyed this cycle. I''m glad Avi and I got to spend time just us. I don''t know how anyone else is doing, but I think they''re ok. Next cycle it would be cool if we were in a big group again. Oh, the wing experiment! Wax feels better, but butter smells better. I kinda want to combine them, and see what that does.I''m not sure if they''d homogenize tho. If I could get them to swirl as a solid I might not need to mix them¡­ I need to go test that. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Samuel and Staab walked through the entrance of Floor 60 at about midnight. The floor was dark; the only signs of life were the lights in shop windows. Smiling, Samuel ran to the spy''s shop and pushed the door open. "Hey," he called to the pink catgirl. "Are we the first ones here?" She quickly hid a notebook under her desk. "You are." You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. "Awesome," he said, turning to Staab. "I told you not sleeping was the way to go. I''m gonna go to the shop and buy two hats with ''loser'' on them." "Better not," Staab told him. "Lily wouldn''t find it funny." "Bro," Samuel said flatly. "Buzz. Kill. It''s not like you''re the one who''s gonna give it to her." Staab made a pathetic, non-committal sound and shrugged. Samuel rolled his eyes. "We should get the button first," Staab said, motioning to the catgirl. "Oh yeah," Samuel said, looking at her. "First cycle you had some kind of fetch quest for us that we ruined. Want us to do it now?" She looked them over for a few seconds, judging. "No. This time I will trade the button for information." He flashed her a smile. "What would you like to know?" She pointed to Samuel. "Tell me what''s on Floors 1 through 9." Her finger moved to Staab. "Tell me what''s on Floors 10 through 19." Samuel frowned. "Here, I know Kimi keeps a spreadsheet of that stuff¡­" He pulled up a message box. "What''s your number?" The catgirl paused, watching him critically. "My number?" "Yeah, your name and item number," he said. "I can ask Kimi for the whole spreadsheet and she can get it to you directly." Her eyes widened slightly. "Athena. Item 302." "Thanks."
From: Samuel (Player 607)
To: Kimi (Player 603), Athena (Item 302)
Subject: Floors
Hey, could you send Athena your list of floors and what all is on them? Thanks! Sam
Athena jumped as the message reached her, and she seemed far more interested in it than Samuel thought was reasonable. "If she doesn''t get back to you by noon tomorrow message me and I''ll ask if anyone else has a list. Aya or Nikki probably have one." He smiled winningly. "And if you ever want to talk, you have my number now. Don''t be a stranger." He winked. Athena slowly smiled. "Oh, don''t worry handsome, I''ll message you." She pulled the button out from under her desk. "Here''s your reward." "We''ll wait for the others," Staab said. "Can you keep it here?" "Yeah, I have hats to buy," Samuel said. "Two hats. One for both of them." "I can keep it," Athena said, typing a new message. "Thank you for your help." "No worries," Samuel said. "Thanks," Staab said. Together they walked to the door. Cycle 3 (7) Dear Diary, We made it to Floor 50 and decided to just stay here. We''ll worry about winning next cycle. Overall, this has kinda been like a vacation cycle. I don''t want to be lazy or slack off, but if Avi wanted, we could turn every cycle where it''s just us into a vacation cycle. That would be fun. I wonder how many races we''ll be. Aya thinks six, one for each Admin. Kimi said the Director might have chosen one, so seven. Samurai thinks maybe there are thirty races and subraces spread throughout the dungeons, and we''ll be each thing once. I wouldn''t mind that. I mean, it might get annoying after a while, and being stuck a bad race for a whole cycle would suck, but at least we''d know we only have to be that thing once. And if we really can''t stand something, like Y, we can ask to be neko and stay on Floor 1. I hope there aren''t any slime races we have to be. I don''t think I could stand being a slime. And if Avi were a slime, I''d have to break up with him. ¡­Great, I now have a new Worst Nightmare. Woo. ¡­I''d better erase that part just in case the idea existing makes it happen. There. It no longer exists. ¡­I can erase things. I can write them down and then get rid of them. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I hope Mika gets her white to be prismatic soon, cuz the flat white of ice magic looks really bad on her. I kinda wish Lily had been the one to stay behind, and not Samantha. I know I''ve said I''ll never poison food, but if I ever met Avi''s relatives, I''d give them a meal that would slowly dissolve all their intestines for how they treated him. Or I could just tie her to a chair and gag her and use her kitchen with her struggling in the corner. I wonder if the Director reads my diary like the Admin did once. Wait. I shouldn''t have erased that. Dear Director: if you''re reading this, I''d appreciate it if you didn''t. I know you kinda watch us all day anyways, but this is private. You don''t want to know what my private thoughts about your mix-n-match dungeon are. I mean, you didn''t even make any floors yourself. And the camp sites are exactly like how our Admin made them, so I''m betting there isn''t a single original thing in this place. That''s kinda lame, honestly. You could have at least added a few new animals. ¡­And no, I''m not worried about insulting anyone by what I write in MY PRIVATE DIARY. If anyone reads this and feels insulted, you shouldn''t have read it in the first place. So it''s really your own fault. Nya. Dear future reader (who isn''t me): I hope you develop a mild cold that lasts for the next three weeks. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 3 (8) Dear Diary, Kimi wrote me and said Lily and Staab and the Sams are back on Floor 1 with them. This means two things: 1) When someone pushes the button, there isn''t some kind of magic wooshy thing that goes through the dungeon like there was in our dungeon. 2) People who push the button get sent to Floor 1, not to some other place like what happened to Mika that one time. It''s just after breakfast, but that felt important to write down. So I did. Next diary entry will probably be in the next cycle. So yeah. Good¡­ erm¡­ Good day, Dungeon!
. . . ***** Admin 6 looked over as Admin 3 groaned. "Problems?" Admin 1 asked. "No, no problems here," 3 said. "Making a working city is impossible, but no problems." "I''m not having any issues," 5 said. "Would you like me to help?" "He''s not cursing, he doesn''t need help yet," 2 said. Admin 6 smiled as Admin 3 turned to 2 and let out a string of vile curses against him, his relatives, cities, the world, and the fact that he had to make sure no one died of starvation. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Ok, this is a man that needs help," 2 conceded, smiling at 5. Admin 6 frowned, opened his mouth, and closed it. "Building cities was never part of our job description," Admin 4 said. "If they don''t work, not our fault." Admin 6 decided to go for it. "We''ve got a couple thousand souls between us in our dungeons, someone should know how cities are supposed to be built. Why not get them to do it? They''re the ones that will have to live in them, after all¡­" He received five horrified and concerned looks. "No," Admin 1 said. Admin 4 glanced at 1, thoughtful. "Why not?" "That would mean talking to them," 5 said. "Yes, 6 talked to them and nothing broke, but-" "We can talk to the players," Admin 4 said. "We don''t need to talk to the mobs or NPCs." "Right, that''s what I meant," 6 lied. "If I was talking about mobs I would''ve said a couple hundred thousand." "If it means I don''t have to put fifty cites together, I''m in favor," 3 said. Admin 2 nodded. "Yeah. Same. We have the resources, it would be a waste to not use them." "They aren''t a resource," 1 said. "They''re¡­" "They''re bored," 5 said softly. "We can ask if anyone wants to help, and offer no reward. If someone volunteers, fine. Give them an office on Floor 1 and a deadline and see what happens. If no one volunteers, at least those in favor of this plan will have tried. Is that acceptable to everyone?" Everyone voiced their approval. Admin 3 smirked. "We could ask if there are any plant people willing to make plants for us, too." "Or make ours better," 4 agreed. "I second that motion," 6 said. "Anything else?" 5 asked, faking exasperation. "I''m proud of my rivers, no one''s touching them. And we all know geology, right?" "A couple universities got taken out," 2 said. "We could look through the courses and see if the professors of anything relevant are players." "We could get law professors to write a few law books for us," 1 suggested, getting into the spirit. "And theologists to write a new religion or two," 6 added. Admin 3 pulled up a message box. "Will we write our own announcements, or send the same one to everyone?" "We should send the same one to everyone," 1 said. "That way at least we''ll be on the same page. Administrator 6, I vote you have the honor of writing." Admin 6 accepted, trying to hide his disappointment. Cycle 4 (1) Dear Diary, Well, my wish was heard. And denied. Hard. It''s a new cycle, and we all have to go as solo players. Which sucks. BUT! WE''RE ALL NEKO!!! That''s right, I''m back to being the green catgirl! (Happy dance!) I love being a catgirl. There''s something about the tail and fur that feels right. And my ears are big so I can hear all the sounds again! I almost forgot how half-deaf I feel when I''m not a neko. I''ve never gone solo before. I think the only ones who have are Aya and Lily. Maybe Mika. I''ve decided to just teleport over all the floors. By now the Director should be aware that I have Lvl100 teleport. "But wait," I hear no one say because I''m all alone, "what about the lower levels that are mazes? If you don''t level up, you can''t get through them!" Yeah, well, I have a Super Defense Bonk Stick now!!! It is very shiny. And if I use it to block an attack, it negates just about all damage. Well, physical attacks, at least. It doesn''t help against magical attacks. But that''s ok. Anyways, I''m between Floors 12 and 13. I decided to not stop at the catgirl floor. The faster I get through, the longer I can spend on Floor 1 doing fun stuff. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Kimi and Y expanded our cabin house thing to have a kitchen and common room, so I can get straight to the cooking part. I wonder if anyone else has teleport at a stupidly high level. Anyone not in our group, I mean. Y has it pretty high, but I don''t know the exact level. And Aya had teleport pretty high, but chose a lightning spell to transfer over. Same with Kimi, but with fire. Oh, I didn''t teleport all the way across Floors 6 or 11. I stopped halfway across to give animals food. Because that''s just a thing I always need to do. ¡­I forgot to ask the chef on Floor 10 if she could make ranch balls for me. Oh well, next cycle. I can''t cross my eyes. I never figured out how to do that. One of my eyes always springs back into place before I manage it. I wonder what the hottest hot sauce I can make here would be¡­ When I get back to Floor 1 I should try it. Just to see. ¡­This is the first night I''ve spent alone in a long time. And it''s the first night I''ve ever spent alone in a room other people can get in. I know I''m probably ahead of everyone else, but¡­ I don''t know. I don''t like it. I hope Avi''s ok. I keep listening for sounds outside, and it''s late enough everyone should already be wherever they''re sleeping, but I''m still kinda nervous. I don''t like being alone. Maybe I should just keep going until I get to Floor 20. I know it''s a bad idea to push through levels when you''re tired, and my body is tired, but I''m mentally wide awake. What are the Floors¡­ Jenny! On Floor 15! I can spend the night with her! In our old dungeon, there was a penalty for spending too long on any one Floor, but no one said there was a penalty like that here! And really we only sleep between the Floors because there''s cabins, not because someone told us to. Ok. I''m gonna hop down to Painbringer the Gold and ask if I can crash at her place. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 4 (Director) The Director looked at Admin 4 over her glasses. "Why can''t your player go solo?" she asked. Admin 4 fidgeted. "She can''t walk." The Director continued to watch him. "What do you mean, ''she can''t walk''?" "I don''t know, she¡­ doesn''t seem to have the ability to move her feet. Usually she''s a fairy, and if her partner isn''t carrying her she flies," he explained. "Is there something wrong with her physically?" the Director asked. "No, ma''am." "Then she should walk. If she chooses not to, then her being left behind is your fault for sending me bad players." She saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped his chair''s armrests. He almost spoke, paused, and took a deep breath. "Fire is a good player," Admin 4 said steadily. "She''s minmaxed to hell and has an intuitive understanding of the magic system. Her partner is a strong fighter, and together they''re one of my best teams. In my dungeon her inability to walk was rarely an issue. I stand by my decision to send her here, and request you allow her to form a party with her partner." The Director sighed. "Admin 6 requested I change two of his player''s races. I allowed it on the condition that they would be confined to Floor 1 for the duration of the cycle. If I allow your players to form a party, I''ll have to impose the same restriction." Admin 4 frowned. "If¡­ If that''s the restriction, then I request you change her into a fairy." "Only her? Not her partner as well?" the Director asked. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. "If I may, I''ll inform him of the situation and ask what he prefers." "Fine." She sat back, thinking. "Will all the Admins come through here asking for allowances for their players? I''ve had two so far, and we''re only on Cycle 4." "Possibly," Admin 4 said, pulling up a screen to compose a message. "I don''t think a single player in the dungeon is completely fine mentally. You''re forcing people into situations they may have been avoiding; some are going to react badly." The Director nodded slowly. "Very well. Let the other Admins know that if a player needs their race changed, I will do it but lock them on Floor 1." "Yes, ma''am." ***** Steel shook his head, taking Fire''s hand. "I won''t leave you by yourself." "I will be fine," she told him, staring at his new cat ears. "I will take a small vacation. It will be relaxing." "Are you sure?" he asked quietly. "Yes." She gently tugged his ear. "This race is fascinating. Why did you never try it in the old dungeon?" "Debuff to strength," he said, hitting reply to the Admin''s message. "You''re sure you''ll be ok?" Fire gave him a rare smile. "I believe you may not be ok, but I can survive a cycle alone." He smiled, typing as she focused on his new tail. "Use teleport," she said absently. Steel hit send. "Sorry?" "The last ten floors¡­ If your teleport is high enough and you remain stealthy, you can get through all of them without fighting. The slime maze will be the hardest, but the catgirl spy may have a way of easily defeating them. Teleport over the floors and you''ll be back here in a few days." That sounded like cheating, but he nodded. Fire nodded back, her big eyes locked on his. "I''ll see you in a few days," Steel said, much more confidently than he felt. She nodded again. "I-" He got to his feet, waiting. "I will miss you," she said quickly, looking away. "I will miss you, too." He took her hand again and squeezed it before stepping away. "Don''t forget to eat. If someone shows up before me, try to make friends. Please don''t burn anything to the ground. And stay safe. Bye." "Good-bye, Steel¡­" Cycle 4 (2) Dear Diary, I did not get enough sleep last night. And in a moment of insamity i decided to go al the way lo Flor 30 So I did. Its hekin late. I cant rember if I had dimner. Probabl I''m not the type of person who forgets to skips meals. So lm at Where Oh. Inn. Floof 30. Thatswhere. I didit Sleepy slep time now Gnight, Dun ***** Lily woke up as light came through her cabin window. During the night other players had arrived, and the cabin was now full. She focused on her three roommates, and their names appeared. Hashbrowns, Ringo, and NoobKiller420. Lily made a mental note to avoid that last person. She lightly dropped from the top bunk to the floor and went outside. A few players were eating breakfast around the campfire. After debating a few seconds, she sat on an empty log and pulled coffee and a granola bar out of her inventory. "Hey." Lily jumped slightly, turning to see who spoke. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "Sorry," Hashbrowns laughed, and held out a hand. "I''m Hash. Admin 5''s group." Lilly shook the orange catgirl''s hand. "Lily. Admin 6." Hash sat down next to her. "I''ve seen you around. The guy in your group with earth magic is your boyfriend, right?" "He is," Lily said, not sure where this was going. Hash pulled a can of coffee out of her inventory. "Cool. That''s a random question¡­ See, my boyfriend thinks that at some point the Director is going to have us all make teams with people not in our group. If that happens, and we happen to have to make teams of four, want to join with us?" Lily watched her thoughtfully for a few seconds. "If that happens, I would be happy to. But I suspect at some point we''ll have to fight each other. If that happens, would you agree to a truce?" "Sure." Hash smiled, opening a message screen. "What''s your number?" ***** Mika walked out of her cabin, smelling food. Someone at the campfire was using a shield like a pan, frying thick strips of bacon. Sadly, that person was not Nikki, meaning Mika probably wouldn''t get any. She focused on the person, and a word appeared above him. "Bacon". "Yep, that''s my name," he called to her, grinning. "Decided to call myself something with good vibes." "Good unless you''re vegan," Mika said, walking over. "Are you vegan?" Bacon asked. "Nope." "Then we''re good." She smiled. "I guess. You selling any of that?" "No, but I''ll let you have some for the joy of your company through breakfast," he said, smiling winningly. "I don''t swing that way, dude," Mika told him. He shrugged, turning the bacon with a pair of long chopsticks. "Not a dealbreaker for me." A fresh wave of bacon smell reached her nose. "Ok, you have my company for breakfast." "Wonderful." ***** Avi floated slowly through space. Eventually he''d hit something. Probably. In the meantime, he was¡­ relaxed. There was no one here to judge him. There was no one to see him fail. There was no one to yell. And there was absolutely no way he could make himself go faster. He was just floating across an empty patch of space. Sure, the first five hours or so had been stressful, but once he''d given up getting to the exit before dark all the stress had melted away. It was now morning, and he was still probably two hours away from the nearest wall. He let himself fall back asleep. Cycle 4 (3) Dear Diary, Wow, my entry for last night was terrible. I am ashamed of myself for the terrible spelling. I''m sorry I inflicted that on you, nonsentient notebook. It''s kinda a little bit late, but I''m not as dead as I was last night. I made it to Floor 40. There were only three Floors I couldn''t teleport over, so I got through pretty fast. Floor 33 is the water floor with the exit underwater. It gave me a little trouble, but I didn''t die! That''s the important thing. Floor 37 is the goblin floor. I forgot to bring them pizza, but they accepted sushi and a bunch of raw ingredients instead. I gave them enough for Avi, so he won''t have to fight them. And he can give them sushi if they want, too. That leaves Floor 38, which is where our dire wolves live. I could have teleported over, but that would be rude. I had to say hi to Siri and the rest of the wolves. I had dinner with them, which made everyone involved happy. I''ll admit, I''m further along than I thought I would be. I wonder if I''ll be able to make it through ten Floors tomorrow and the day after¡­ Tomorrow I''ll have two mazes to get through, and a water floor where I have to find two parts of a key. Other than that I can hop over them. Should be doable. Actually¡­ I should be able to make it to Floor 54, where Lewis and the kobolds are. They might still have the house they made for us like a million cycles ago. And if not, I can crash at Nat''s place! I''ll be too tired to cook with her, but she should have some food available for me. I miss her cooking. That would mean only stopping to say hi to the girls on Floor 50, but that''s ok. Actually, I might have dinner there. That''s a good idea. Right! Plan for tomorrow is set! Woo! I should write everyone and ask where they''re at. Just so I know. It would be good too have an idea of where everyone is. I miss them. Being solo is the absolute worst. I hope Avi is ok. I''ll go write those letters now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Nikki [Player 606]
To: Avi [Player 601], Aya [Player 602], Kimi [Player 603], Lily [Player 604], Mika [Player 605], Samuel [Player 607], Samurai [Player 608], Staab [Player 609], Y [Player 610]
Subject: Hi!!!
Hey! This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. How ya doing? I''m on Floor 40! I miss everyone! Nikki
From: Avi [Player 601]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Re: Hi!!!
I''m on Floor 16! The sound of waves is super relaxing. I miss you. Avi
From: Aya [Player 602]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Re: Hi!!!
On Floor 20. Next time we go solo, I''m turning back into Ty.
From: Mika [Player 605]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Re: Hi!!!
Wow, 40 is far! I''m between 23 and 24. I''m kinda in a team with a dude named Bacon now. He cooks almost as good as you do, you need to meet up and trade secrets. Bye! Mika ?©³(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©»(¡ã.¡ã)©·©»(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©³(¡ã.¡ã)©· ?
From: Lily [Player 604]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: (Empty)
Hello, I am doing well. I''m not advancing quite as quickly as you, but for someone focused on psychic magic I''m happy with my pace. Love, Lily
From: Kimi [Player 603]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: I''m on Floor 28!
(Empty)
From: Samurai [Player 608]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Hi!!!!
Sam and I are keeping together. We''re on Floor 22. How''d you get to 40, cheater? Sam
From: Staab [Player 609]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Re: Hi!!!
I FOUGHT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FIRST NIGHT AND SCREWED UP MY SLEEP SCHEDULE. FLOOR 29 HEY DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAKE DOUGHNUTS?
From: Y [Player 610]
To: Nikki [Player 606]
Subject: Greetings
You are currently six Floors ahead of me. When we get to Floor 1 we should attempt a new energy drink. Y
Cycle 4 (4) Dear Diary, I''m back on Floor 1! And I''m the first one here woo! Last night I stayed with Nat, so that¡¯s why I didn¡¯t write. She told me that a couple people are mad about being sent here. That they¡¯re upset to be stuck in one place again. I get that, but then she said a couple people blame us, which I don¡¯t get. I mean, we had no idea the Admin was bringing any Floors over, so how could we have known he¡¯d bring them? It¡¯s silly. In other news, it looks like I¡¯m kinda way ahead of everyone else. Y said I was ahead of him by six floors, so he should be here tomorrow. But I don¡¯t know when everyone else will get here. Oh! The catgirls on Floor 60! The spy just gave me a couple bottles with secret messages in them, and told me to put them on certain Floors, by the exits. Which seems easy enough. I really really want to know what the secret messages say, but I promised to not open the bottles so I can¡¯t look. I have to keep my promises, after all. I am a catgirl of my word. Anyways, the cabin things here are all open. I thought they would be locked, or that there¡¯d be some kind of barrier to keep random people from wandering in, but nope. The individual rooms only allow the person who owns them to open the door, so at least there¡¯s that. Of course, if that person leaves the door open, then I can go in. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡­I¡¯ve only explored my cabin and Cabin 5. I plan on snooping through the rest of them tomorrow. It looks like they¡¯re all the same. They¡¯re arranged in a half-circle, with the Floor exit in the middle of the far wall. So when the cycle resets and all the players leave, we don¡¯t have to pass each other or anything. I don¡¯t know why I felt like describing all this. I don¡¯t usually describe things. I mean, I know what everything looks like. And I¡¯m the only one who¡¯s gonna read this book, so why bother? It¡¯d be like telling myself I have green eyes and thin eyebrows. ¡°Hello, me, did you know I have green hair? It¡¯s shoulder-length and annoyingly wavy! Wow!¡± ¡­Actually, I wonder if I could change my hair type. I probably can, since I can change the length and color. I should see if I can get straight hair. But then my head might look weird. I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ll wait and see what race we are next cycle. I like the length of it, I just wish random clumps of hair wouldn¡¯t decide to stick out at odd angles. As long as I¡¯m here I might make cakes for everyone as they arrive. That would be fun. It would give me something to do. I could make cakes and leave them in the other cabins, too! But I don¡¯t know what kind of cakes everyone likes¡­ Well, everyone likes vanilla, right? Or, no one dislikes vanilla. It¡¯s a very safe choice. Yeah, that¡¯s a good idea. Tomorrow I¡¯ll make a bunch of vanilla cakes. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 4 (5) Dear Diary, Someone else is here! ¡­Well, Y got here this morning, but someone I don¡¯t know is here! Or, didn¡¯t know. She¡¯s a fairy, and comes from Admin 4¡¯s dungeon. Her name is Fire. Ok, officially her name is LadyDarkFire, but she said her name was Fire, so I¡¯m gonna stick with that. I didn¡¯t ask why she stayed behind this cycle, because that would be rude. Fire is¡­ interesting. She¡¯s crazy, but in a calm way. Like, I don¡¯t think anything could startle her. And if everything went horribly wrong, she¡¯d just sit there and accept it. I met her this morning. She smelled me making breakfast and came over to see what it was. It was pancakes, which I shared. Fairies are small, so she only needed one pancake. Y got here just after we finished, and after two minutes decided he was gonna adopt her. Which is fine by me. I mean, she¡¯s nice and it would be rude to say she can¡¯t hang out with us. Plus I get the feeling she¡¯ll get along super well with Kimi. She has the same ¡°let¡¯s see if we can set everything on fire¡± vibe as Kimi. Kimi is just¡­ louder. And before anyone says anything, no, Y doesn''t have a "let''s see if we can set everything on fire" vibe. His is more¡­ "I know I can set everything on fire but specifically am not as that would be rude" vibe. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Anyways, this afternoon Y and I made energy drinks (since no one is around to stop us), and Fire agreed to be our tester. She suggested adding anise, which was actually a great idea. It combines with the fish flavor and makes it less identifiably fish. Which makes the drink as a whole more palatable. After drinking the concoction, Fire ping-ponged off the buildings and walls for like ten minutes then went comatose for half an hour. Which is a decent reaction. She didn''t die, so we''re declaring it a success. Even if she didn''t get a magic buff or debuff (boo). Y and I tasted half a glass each. In a small amount I just got the urge to sweep the entire building and the ground around it. It wore off before I hit the next building over. I think it opened Y''s mind to a new dimension cuz he grabbed a pen and started writing equations all over the walls. That lasted for¡­ maybe twenty minutes. I think the effects wore off before that, but he was on a roll and didn''t want to stop. We think the next person to get here will be Kimi, so we''re leaving what he wrote up so she can see it and give her opinions. On whatever it is. I''d ask, but I don''t want to sit there for half an hour as Y goes into Professor Mode and forgets I don''t have a PhD in math or chemistry. I just had an idea! I could get Fire to ask where Y''s from! Or, where his family is from. She seems like the type of person who would ignore "don''t ask that" feelings. She might even be convinced to ask his full name. Even tho that''s completely unaskable, and even if someone asked me I couldn''t answer. Actually, on second thought, it might be best to not ask her to ask. I''ll decide tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 4 (6) Dear Diary, Today we mixed a few foods together to test them. So far they''re magicless, but we''re going down in complexity, and something might work eventually. The french fry pizza is baking, so I have a couple minutes. A couple minutes in which to say¡­ I got Fire to ask Y about his family! Apparently he''s half Japanese and half Lebanese. No wonder I couldn''t figure out where he was from. And his grandparents all had restaurants, so that''s why he''s good at cooking! That just felt important to write down. In case I forget. Or something. Anyways, Kimi should get here tonight, so no more energy drink making. It was fun while it lasted. The pizza timer went off! Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Kimi pushed the reset button and felt magic surround her. She landed in her room on Floor 1. Smiling, she opened her door and listened for voices. Y and Nikki were downstairs, talking about chicken stuffing. From the volume Kimi judged Y to be closer to the stairwell. Perfect. She snuck to the stairs, crouching at the top to see as much as possible. Y was just walking by, going from the kitchen to the common area. He glanced up and did a double-take when he saw her. Kimi launched herself down the stairs, landing like a cat on his chest. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Y yelped, stumbled back, and collapsed laughing into a chair. "Hey there, Upsilon." She kissed him. Nikki''s voice interrupted. "We also exist. In case you didn''t know." "Like you won''t do the same when Avi gets here," Kimi said, her eyes locked on Y''s. "Not in public," Nikki grumbled. "Coward." She adjusted her position, kissing her husband again. "Oh," a voice she didn''t recognize said. "She is your sister." "What?" Nikki asked. Kimi sat back, finally looking over. A pale fairy sat on the kitchen counter, her feet dangling over the side. "Y being married to your sister would answer all my questions about your relationship," the fairy told Nikki. Kimi teleported over and noogied the space between Nikki''s ears before she could deny it. "Yep, this is my baby sister!" "Ow, hey!" Nikki pushed her away. "Why am I the baby?" "Because I''m older," Kimi said. "Oh yeah." Y cleared his throat, calmly walking over. "Kim, Fire; Fire, Kim." "It is nice to meet you," Fire said. "You call him by the Greek letter?" Kimi smiled. "Yep!" "Is that what that is," Nikki muttered, going back to her cooking. "You didn''t know?" Y asked. "No," Nikki said. "I am a normal person. Normal people don''t know the Greek alphabet by heart." Fire turned towards her. "Alpha beta gamma del-" "Sorry, I also don''t care, thanks." Kimi put her arm around her. "Aww, don''t be mad, Sis, just because you aren''t as special as¡­ Why are you stuffing a chicken with fish cubes?" "We also stuffed chicken with hamburger," Y said helpfully. "They are attempting to gain extra buffs by eating two things at once," Fire told her. "It will not work." "It might," Nikki said. "We won''t know until we try." "It will not." Kimi laughed, moving back to Y. "Well, as long as it isn''t another energy drink." "The energy drink was quite vile, yes," Fire said. Nikki and Y froze. "You didn''t," Kimi growled. Y took her arm. "Kim, look!" He turned her towards a wall. "I wrote this out, do you think it''s correct?" Kimi sighed, rolled her eyes, and focused on the equation. Cycle 4 (7) Dear Diary, There are six people here now, so I think the cycle will reset soonish. Kimi got here last night, and two people from Admin 2 got here today. The two from Admin 2 didn''t really talk to us. They just said they wanted to know if they were the first ones back. And they weren''t. They accepted a pizza, though. Oh, we forgot to warn Fire that we''re not supposed to make energy drinks. She told Kimi. Y and I are now forbidden from cooking together unless she or Avi are around. Which, as far as punishments goes, is perfectly fine. I don''t mind cooking with Y, but group cooking is more fun than duo cooking. Speaking of cooking, the magical buffs that comes with food is¡­ lame. It''s dumb. There, I said it! The magic should be fun and cool, but it isn''t! Only completed dishes have magic, and there''s no way to mix it up or invent new things! Which is annoying! I want to make new things and have them be magical! Honestly I want to write a strongly worded letter to the Admin that made the magic food and tell them they''re dumb! This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Nya! By the end we were trying things so weird it didn''t even taste all that good. And there aren''t any ants or wolves or velociraptors to give the food we didn''t eat to. Which is sad and wasteful. Oh, Avi got to the dracoraptor floor and decided to just stay there until the cycle reset. I¡­ understand why, but it does make me kinda worried. I mean, the players with the least number of button pushes will get sent back to their original dungeons on Cycle 15, and so far he only has one button push. Yeah, we''re only on Cycle 4, but still. I don''t want him to be sent away. Not after everything we did to get him here. I kinda wish no one would get sent away. That way no one would be afraid of failure. Like, sure, the top prize is nice and all, but there''s no punishment for losing. At least I don''t think there is. No one said there was. If there''s a secret punishment for coming in last, that''s super unfair. Anyways, I''m debating getting longer hair. I''ve had mine at shoulder length for like forever. Fire''s hair goes to her waist, but in super distinct layers. It looks¡­ somewhere between elegant and cool. I wouldn''t copy her hairstyle exactly, obviously, but I like the look. I wonder what Avi would look like with long hair. As long as I''ve known him he''s always had pretty short hair. Which looks good, sure, but seeing him with long hair would be interesting. I need to propose that everyone switch hair styles for a cycle. Just to see what we all look like. For something different. I know some people hate things that are different, but I like to change things up every once in a while. Anyways, I should go to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 4 (8) Dear Diary, Two more people showed up today, so the cycle will probably reset before breakfast tomorrow. One was a lady from Admin 3. It kinda looks like she put all her stats into strength, and could beat a herd of elephants at tug-of-war. I''m pretty sure she''s usually an orc or something, since seeing her as a super buff catgirl was just kinda¡­ not right. Like something was off in the universe. She came by to see how many people pushed the button ahead of her. She did not accept a cake. The second person to get here was Steel, Fire''s partner. I''m not quite sure what kind of partner. He''s a cool guy; kinda introverted but he had dinner with us. I think he was surprised that Fire befriended us. Or, that we weren''t creeped out by Fire. And then he spent an hour with us and realized we''re all insane. Just in slightly different ways. Oh, Fire thinks Kimi is my sister. She said it explains everything. Which, great, but we''re not related. Kimi has totally accepted the idea and keeps calling me "baby sis". I¡­ don''t mind the "sis" part but the "baby" I could do without. I don''t remember if I had a sister. At this point I barely remember my parents. I guess if Kimi wants me to be her sister I wouldn''t mind. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Oh! I tried boiling potatoes in ketchup today. Since french fries and ketchup give a buff, I wanted to know if the same ingredients would become magical. They didn''t. And it made the kitchen smell weird. So then I boiled pancake batter in chocolate syrup. That also didn''t do anything magical but it got rid of the ketchup smell. I was trying to do something similar to beignets. And failed miserably. Turns out, there''s a massive difference between frying something in a pot of oil and boiling it in a pot of fairly viscous liquid! Who knew! Consistency aside, it still tasted good. I mean, pancake batter. Boiled in chocolate. Can''t really go bad with that. Unless you burn the syrup, which I made sure didn''t happen. I feel the need to say: it was chocolate syrup from the shop, the stuff I make milkshakes out of. Not chocolate from the poison hot chocolate lake. Although¡­ No, terrible idea. I shouldn''t try boiling batter in the chocolate from the lake to see if the poison transfers over. Unless Avi wants to try it. That could be fun. I wonder who all in our group knows about the poison effect. Kimi and Y do, since they tried the pudding. There''s a 50/50 chance the Sams tried it just to see what the poison did. I don''t think Mika, Lily or Staab would have tried it. They don''t drink poison. When they get here I''ll have to ask Samurai if she''s tried the chocolate. In a casual way. Just to see if they know. They should get here tomorrow. Until then¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 5 (1)
Hello! This is a special cycle! Instead of racing each other to the bottom of the dungeon, this cycle will be PvP. To make things interesting, I have placed six hellhounds on Floor 1. Each building has a hound stationed near the front door to stop you from exiting. When you die, you will be locked in your room. The last eight people free will be this cycle''s winners. Go out there and fight! Director
***** Dear Diary, This is gonna be a fun cycle. We''re supposed to be killing everyone. Which would suck for Avi and me. But the first obstacle we''re supposed to kill is a seven-foot-tall crimson flaming hellhound. It''s a doggo. Her name is now Rusty. She is a very polite doggo, who knows how to Sit and Stay, and loves bacon. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. So, remember when I said the love of my life is a beast tamer? Yep. Avi saw the giant doggo and ran out to make friends. I''ll admit I was a little scared for him. At first. I mean, Admin 1''s group all ran out to kill their hellhound, and like half of them were immediately eaten. No one else was outside yet, I think they were trying to plan. Anyways, Avi ran out, and Rusty bit his arm. Avi told Rusty that biting is rude, and dogs that bite don''t get treats. Rusty sure knows the word "treat". She let go and laid down, tail wagging. It was super cute. At that point I thought it was safe enough, so I went outside and gave the doggo bacon. She is now our bestest friend. Rusty is no Siri Wolf, but she''s a close second for Best Girl. It has been decided that Avi and I will spend the cycle feeding and playing with Rusty. We want her to be the best guard dog, and she will be. Meanwhile Kimi, Y, Mika and Samuel will build barriers and trebuchets and things to protect our building. Lily, Staab, Aya and Samurai will sneak around and kill anyone dumb enough to go outside. We''re all kinda proud of this plan. It''s a good plan; we all have important parts to play. No one is left out or stuck with a lame job. Oh, the last person to get here was from Admin 2, too. So the eight that won last cycle were me, Kimi, Y, three from 2, Steel from 4, and the tank lady from 3. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s important, but I felt like writing it down. If we ever go solo again it will be interesting to see if the same eight people win. I kinda wish I could go around and ask where everyone was when they lost. But that might be rude. Plus we are kinda all supposed to kill each other. Maybe if I go over with a cake and white flag¡­ No, that¡¯s a terrible idea. We¡¯re supposed to pretend we were always normal players. If another group sends someone out with cake and a white flag I¡¯ll do it, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s gonna happen. Oh well, I can have fun making food for our new doggo. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 5 (2) Dear Diary, I didn¡¯t mention yesterday that we¡¯re hobgoblins this cycle. So, so far we¡¯ve been human, elf, half-dragon, neko, and hobgoblin. There are six Admins, and everyone thinks each admin chose a race to be. If that¡¯s true, on Cycle 7 we should be human again. I wouldn¡¯t mind that, but I wish we could just stay neko forever. Anyways! The WAR! Admin 1¡¯s group is completely gone. Their hellhound took out half of them, and then Admin 3¡¯s group went over and killed the rest. Admin 2¡¯s group killed their hellhound without losing anyone, but they aren¡¯t a very¡­ cohesive group. They keep going out solo and sneaking around to kill people. Admin 3¡¯s group keeps trying to break into the buildings. It doesn¡¯t work. They seem to all be focused on brute strength over magic or anything else. Admin 4¡¯s group tried to set 5¡¯s building on fire, and that didn¡¯t work. Which is good to know, mostly so we don¡¯t try it. And also because I don¡¯t want our building to burn down. Admin 5¡¯s group hasn¡¯t killed their hellhound yet. They¡¯re using it as a guard dog like we are, but without befriending it. So they¡¯re kinda just stuck in their building. Staab said Admin 3¡¯s group plans on killing 5¡¯s hellhound. He wants to attack them when they do that, and Y says we¡¯ll have a couple trebuchets ready by then. So yeah! The fun continues! Goodnight, Dungeon! Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
. . . Kimi screwed wheels onto a trebuchet axle, wondering if it was technically a catapult axle. She also wondered what the difference was. Not knowing bothered her. Lily came over and watched. "Do you know the difference between a trebuchet and a catapult?" Kimi asked. "Catapult is the broad term, trebuchet is just French," Lily said. Kimi stopped, looking up at her. "Really?" Lily shrugged. "That''s what Staab said." "Oh." Kimi picked up another screw. "So¡­ Nikki and Y were the first two here last cycle?" Lily asked casually. Kimi felt herself bristle. "Yeah." "They were here, what, three nights? Alone?" Kimi sighed. Lily smiled patronizingly. "That doesn''t worry you?" "No," Kimi said flatly. "Lily, I''m going to say this once: just because you''re insecure about your relationship doesn''t mean I''m insecure about mine. Never imply my husband is cheating on me again. Ok?" Lily took a step back. "Ok, ignore the warning signs. I''m just trying to help." "No you''re not," Kimi snapped. "You''re jealous. You can''t stand that anyone has something you don''t. Staab is going to dump you again any day now, and you just need to make sure everyone else is as miserable and alone as you are. But your attempts to make us hate each other only makes me hate you more." "So you hate me." Kimi watched her for a few seconds. "I never liked how manipulative you were. And then I fell in love and you have tried everything to ruin it for me. But you will not take this from me. My patience is gone. The next time you try something I will burn you to the ground." Lily turned away. "Understood." Cycle 5 (3) Dear Diary, Steel and Fire came over for tea today. Yes, we are at war, but that doesn¡¯t mean we won¡¯t be polite and have tea with them. A woman from Admin 5¡¯s group saw them, and she came over with her boyfriend, too. They¡¯re Hash and 9. Or, that¡¯s what they prefer to be called. Y told them they can change their names to officially be that, and it kinda blew their minds. Hash and 9 are nice. She met Lily, and they agreed to not fight if ever there was a PvP. So now we all know each other. I like that we¡¯re making friends. Anyways, while Hash and 9 were here, Admin 3¡¯s group attacked their building. They killed their hellhound, but the dog ate two people before it died. Staab, Mika, Aya, and the Sams ran out and attacked Admin 3¡¯s group, and everyone else helped with the trebuchets. Admin 3¡¯s group went down to two people, and when they retreated a couple people from Admin 2¡¯s group appeared out of nowhere and stabbed them to death. So Admin 3¡¯s group is gone! Sadly, Mika and Samuel are also gone. Mika is piiiiissed that she¡¯s stuck in her room. She can open the door and window, but she can¡¯t get out. We can pass her food, though. Samuel is resigned, and has requested I make him a big cake. It¡¯s cooling right now, and I¡¯m waiting to put the frosting on. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Oh, Mika said she made friends with someone from Admin 2¡¯s group. When Fire and Hash came over today I kinda wanted to say she should invite them over too. Then we would have friends with people in three groups! I wonder if this whole PvP thing will be a regular feature of this dungeon. I don¡¯t like killing people, but it¡¯s something different. I still have the secret message bottles that the catgirl on Floor 60 gave me. Hopefully she doesn¡¯t mind that I can¡¯t give them to anyone this cycle. I¡¯ll drop them next cycle, I promise. I wonder if I can somehow write her and explain what¡¯s going on. She has to have an item number, I just don¡¯t know what it is. Or her name. I¡­ didn¡¯t ask her name. I guess I really am turning into a real player, who doesn¡¯t think NPCs are real people. I mean, now that I think about it I know she¡¯s a person with a name, but I didn¡¯t think about it when I was talking to her. I feel bad about that. I should have asked. Next cycle I will! Next cycle I¡¯ll go down and ask all their names, not just the spy¡¯s name! And I¡¯ll write them down so I don¡¯t forget. I should ask everyone in the dungeon for their names. I¡¯ll start a spreadsheet thing like Kimi has, and find out everyone¡¯s name! Yeah! That¡¯ll be good. It¡¯ll keep my¡­ My humanity. I¡¯m human. I wasn¡¯t born a neko. And everyone else here was born a human, too. I can¡¯t ever forget that. ¡­The cake is cool enough to put frosting on. I should go ask Samuel if he wants me to decorate it a specific way. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 5 (4) Dear Diary, Admin 2''s group is all gone now. They came over and tried to attack us, but Rusty (the good hellhound doggo that she is) ate them. The rest of us helped, but she did most of the fighting. So only people from 4, 5, and 6 are left. Which, well, we don''t really want to fight? 4 is Fire''s group, and 5 is Hash''s group, and we''re kinda friends. But only eight people can win. No one wants to stay here forever. So we''ll have to do something. What that something is¡­ we don''t know. Hopefully the Director comes up with a way out. In other news, Kimi is refusing to talk to Lily. That''s something I feel like we should talk about. It''s important to be on good terms with everyone in the group. Mika is still angry about being stuck in her room. Samuel is bored. He enjoyed the cake I made him, but there isn''t anything to do. Oh, Avi tried to make a collar for Rusty, but anything that stays on her for more than a few minutes either burns or melts off. She needs something magically resistant to heat and fire. Sadly, nothing in the inventory shop has resistances. When the cycle ends and we go through the dungeon again we''re gonna try finding Rusty. Avi thinks if we just walk around shouting "treats" we''ll find her. I''m not saying the idea wouldn''t work, I''m just saying more than one animal will react to the word. I mean, if you go to a dog park on Earth and shout "treats!" more than one animal will run towards you. Cats, dogs, birds, lots of animals know what that word is. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. So using the word to find one specific animal¡­ might be hard. Speaking of treats, I should prep bacon for tomorrow before going to bed. It''ll take all of five seconds, but it''s best to have it ready now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Admin 6 followed Admins 4 and 5 into the Director''s office. The Director didn''t look particularly happy. "Your players aren''t fighting," she stated. "My players act strategically," Admin 5 said, taking the only chair. "They know they can''t lose if they never leave their building." Admin 4 nodded. "Mine have set up ranged weapons. They''ll take down anyone who goes outside, but presume the other groups also have ranged weapons." "Same," Admin 6 said. The Director took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "How will we resolve this?" Admin 6 shared a glance with 4 as 5 frowned at the desk. "We can''t allow an eternal siege," the Director added. "Something has to push them out of their buildings." "Take them out at random?" 5 tried. "Tell them that for every hour no one dies, we will kill someone. Until only eight are left." "How many are left?" Admin 4 asked. "I have six." "Eight," Admin 6 said. Admin 5 glanced back at them. "Eight." "That makes twenty-two," the Director said. "How would we decide who gets killed?" "RNG," 6 shrugged. "Give all the players a number and let an indifferent program choose." 4 nodded again. "That''s fair." "Very well," the Director said, leaning back in her chair. "I''ll leave it to you three to alert your players. The clock will start at midnight." "Great," 5 said, standing. The three Admins left. Cycle 5 (Frog)
From: Admin 4
To: Frog (Item 401), Fire (Item 402), Keravnos (Item 404), Octavius (Item 407), Ringo (Item 408), Steel (Item 409)
Subject: Attack
Hello, Beginning at midnight, someone must die each hour. Either kill or risk being killed yourself. That is all.
Frog closed the message, getting out of bed. He pulled clothes on as he walked to the door, wondering what to do. Once in the corridor, he knocked on all the "live" player''s doors. Steel and Octavius opened their doors immediately, already dressed for battle. Ringo and Kerav came out a few seconds later. "Your girlfriend coming?" Frog asked Steel. Steel glanced at the closed door. "She''s not- I mean- Probably not." "Right." Frog looked over the group. "So. How do we lure people out?" "Will shooting through windows work?" Kerav tried. "Buildings don''t burn from the outside, but they might from the inside." "Ok, step 1: lightning through all the windows," Frog said. "If I see someone I could try charming them into coming outside," Ringo said. Frog nodded. "Step 2: we storm the door with the best defenses we''ve got. Step 3: Ringo charms people out and we kill them." "Should we capture some?" Steel asked. "Why?" Octavius nodded. "One person dies every hour, non-compounding. Keep a couple people as sacrifices so we don''t die in our sleep." Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Frog thought it over. "Step 3: Ringo charms people out and we hog-tie them for later. Who will do the hourly killing?" "Fire can," Steel said. "She''s good at staying awake. She¡­ mightaccidentallytorturethem, but she can get the job done." "Torture?" Kerav echoed, eyebrows raised. Steel shrugged sheepishly. "As long as they get dead on time, I don''t care," Frog decided. "Step 4: Fire does timed murders. Any notes?" There were no notes. "Nice." Frog cracked his knuckles. "We''ll wait till midnight and see how it all goes wrong." ***** It was all going wrong. The lightning hadn''t worked. That was fine. What wasn¡¯t fine was that the lightning had alerted the hellhound. Most of group 6 was outside now, encouraging their beloved puppy to eat everyone. They weren¡¯t attacking, just laughing. Which was worse. Octavius screamed as the hellhound bit into his chest, and the mage vanished. Great. ¡°Ringo! Charm people!¡± Frog snapped, blocking the dog¡¯s paw with his buckler. ¡°Steel! Kill the charmed people! Kerav! Help me!¡± Everyone moved, responding quickly to his orders. Group 6 also responded quickly, and Frog remembered these weren¡¯t mobs. They were people who could think and adapt. He had to think and adapt, too. The hellhound yelped as lightning hit it on the nose. Frog jumped up, swinging his greatsword at its neck. The dog saw him too late to back away completely, but soon enough to avoid a lethal blow. It howled as lava-like blood flowed from its neck. ¡°I got it!¡± Kerav shouted, sending thunder into its ears. Frog struck as it backed away, plunging his sword deep into the hellhound¡¯s chest. It gave a howl that turned into a whimper, and collapsed. Leaving Kerav to finish the monster off, Frog ripped his sword out and ran to join Steel and Ringo. A crossbow bolt hit him in the stomach, making him stumble back. A smallish person with silver eyes was suddenly in front of him, pushing the tip of a spear into his chest. ¡°You killed my dog,¡± the silver-eyed person snarled, and jabbed the spear into Frog¡¯s chest. ¡°It¡¯s not a dog!¡± Frog coughed, grabbing the spear¡¯s shaft. ¡°It¡¯s a monster.¡± ¡°She wasn¡¯t a monster!¡± They pulled the spear back, ready to deliver a killing strike. Frog briefly considered apologizing. And then a fireball hit him in the face. He blinked, finding himself back in his room. Well. That was strange. Cycle 6 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re fairies! I like being a fairy. I think Admin 5¡¯s group won last cycle. Admin 4¡¯s group attacked their building, which got Rusty¡¯s attention, and we went out to watch. They saw we were out and decided to attack us instead. The leader, Frog, killed Rusty, which got Avi mad. He attacked him. That¡¯s the first time Avi¡¯s ever attacked someone unprompted. I¡¯m¡­ kinda not sure how to feel. Cuz that¡¯s what a real player would do, and we¡¯re pretending to be real players. But¡­ Well, the Avi I know and love doesn¡¯t want to hurt people. I don¡¯t want him to change. Kimi killed the guy. To make sure Avi didn¡¯t. I¡¯m thankful. And then Admin 5¡¯s players released their ranged weapons and killed a bunch of us (including me). I think at the very end they had to come out and melee fight, but I was too tired to watch. Anyways, for this cycle we¡¯re in teams of two, but we can¡¯t be paired with someone in our group. Just to shake things up. Apparently Lily made a deal with Hash that they would team up if this ever happened. Since they¡¯re together, Staab and 9 are together. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Fire and Steel came over, and they asked to team up with Kimi and Y. Then two women named Bacon and Moose came over, and they asked to team up with Mika and Samurai. Who accepted. That left four of us, which worked out cuz then the people who attacked us from Admin 4¡¯s group came over. Frog said he was impressed with how well we fought, and we would all learn something if we teamed up. Which was nice of him. If you have to battle someone to the death, the least they can do is acknowledge a job well done. So this cycle I¡¯m in a team with a guy named Octavius. He¡¯s a mage who focuses on big spells. Big spells tend to have long cooldowns, so he also has decent fighting stats. We get along pretty well so far. Aya is with a guy named Keravnos who is also a lightning magic user. Samuel teamed up with a person who uses charm magic. Meaning Avi had to team up with Frog. Frog did apologize for hurting Rusty. That made things better. I know Avi isn¡¯t thrilled about it, but he¡¯s trying to be a good sport. We debated staying together, meeting up in the stairwell camps, but decided not to. Staying together would just make us lag behind. Instead we¡¯ll let each other know when we reach the catgirl floors, and see if we can meet up there. We¡¯ll get to the first one tomorrow, and I¡¯ll be able to pick up my Super Defense Bonk Stick! The staff I have now kinda sucks. I mean, it¡¯s a stick. It doesn¡¯t do much. At least a magical titanium stick will be, like, magical and titanium. I wonder if I should ask for a specific armor. I¡¯ve been wearing whatever drops from monsters, but some people have a Look. Maybe bikini armor is a thing here, I haven¡¯t checked. I¡¯ll check when we get to the catgirl floor tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 6 (2) Dear Diary, Bikini armor is a thing here! BUT! There¡¯s also magical jewelry! So I can keep wearing my jeans and t-shirt and put on the necklace and bracelet set that gives +3 resistance to slashing/piercing damage. Plus it¡¯s pretty. There was non-magical jewelry back in our old dungeon, but it was kinda¡­ basic. This stuff was obviously designed by someone who actually likes and wears jewelry. It actually feels a little too fancy for my jeans and t-shirt, but oh well. I hope at some point we¡¯ll be able to keep magical items from one cycle to the next. Losing everything sucks. Yeah, the store is there and it¡¯s fine, but I¡¯d like to start out with armor that actually protects me. And not having to re-buy my bonk stick every cycle would be epic. At least you, Diary Dear, aren''t magical and don''t get taken out. Anyways, I left all the bottles with secret messages in them on the requested floors. My miniquest is complete! And I didn¡¯t even look to see what the secret messages were. I should have. I¡¯m super curious. But oh well. In other news, Kimi and Lily are kinda enemies? They aren¡¯t talking. We were all here tonight around dinner time, and Kimi refused to eat at the same table as Lily. I usually don¡¯t like drama and want to stay out of it, but this is super drama. I just need to know the source, and then I¡¯ll be able to form opinions and back away. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Kimi doesn¡¯t want to tell me yet. She specifically said ¡°yet¡±, so I think she¡¯ll tell me soon. But she¡­ she said sisters have to stick together. We aren¡¯t sisters. Not really. I kinda wonder if she doesn¡¯t remember that. I mean, a while back she said she didn¡¯t want to remember anything from before the dungeon. That her life sucked and life here was way better. Maybe she sped up her forgetting, and now remembers nothing. Maybe she had a sister, and when Fire called us sisters¡­ I don¡¯t know. Maybe her real sister was replaced with me? Like I said, I don¡¯t mind if she calls me her sister. Kimi is my best friend (other than Avi). Being sisters would be cool. But in a literal sense we¡¯re not related. I don¡¯t want to forget that. Every day I remember less and less about life before the dungeon. It makes me sad, but I¡¯m not scared any more. There¡¯s no point in being afraid. I know I will lose all my memories, and it¡¯s fine. As long as I have my husband and my friends I¡¯ll be ok. I don¡¯t need those old memories to be happy. Oh, I started a list of names. I¡¯m gonna write down everyone in the dungeon¡¯s names in the back of this book. Later I might add in their favorite food, but for now it¡¯s just names. Because everyone deserves to be called by their name. I¡¯m gonna write player names down too. That might actually take longer than the NPCs, since I don¡¯t have all that many opportunities to talk to people from other groups. Wait, I¡¯m with Octavius, who¡¯s in Admin 4¡¯s group. He can tell me all the names from that group, at least. I¡¯ll ask him first thing tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 6 (Director) The Director frowned, looking over numbers. There were five extra souls in Admin 6''s dungeon. She checked their stats, and found they were a type of octopi. Extremely annoyed, she summoned 6 to her office. He appeared with an iced coffee in his hand. Clearly worried, he smiled. "Hello." "Hello," she said, sitting up. "It has come to my attention your dungeon has more souls in it than what I gave you." 6 paused, sitting down across from her. "It does?" "Yes. Were you unaware?" "Y... Yes. Where?" He seemed genuinely confused, the worry gone. That was good; he hadn''t deliberately broken any rules, at least. "It says you have five extra octopi souls," she said, sending a screen to him. "Octopi... Slimes... How did I..." He stopped, then seemed to remember something. "I didn''t do it. Players did, accidentally." The Director sighed. "Tell me someone didn''t try boning a slime." "Wh- No! Nonono, they wanted to experiment with them, so they carved chunks out of a couple slimes and took them off the floor," he explained. "I had it set that slimes aren''t dead until they''re completely gone, so both parts of the slime were considered alive. At least I think that''s what happened." The Director looked over the stats again. They did look like they were derived from only one parent soul each. "Why didn''t you inform me when it happened?" If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "I... didn''t think of it," he said. "I thought some player would kill the new slimes, and they''d be gone. I didn''t think they were full souls. And honestly after that I forgot about them." "I see," she said slowly. "Did you punish the players?" "No, I just told them to not do it again. And they didn''t." "Who were the players? I might need to find them." Admin 6 fiddled nervously with his cup. The Director felt a pit in her stomach. "They''re in my dungeon, aren''t they?" "Kimi and Y," he muttered. She leveled a glare at him. "The ones that keep taking monsters off their floors?" "Ah, no, that would be Nikki and Avi. Although they do tend to stick together, so it might look like they¡¯re¡­" "Oh. So the ones that somehow turned all the air on Floor 28 into sulfur dioxide." "Yes." "Why did you think it was appropriate to send them here?" she demanded. He fiddled with his cup some more before answering. "It makes for a change. After trying to decide if one player is just a liiitle too stab-happy, and wondering why another keeps trying to seduce a kraken, dealing with people who only cause problems in the name of science and friendship is... nice. It''s a relief. Isn''t it?" "No," she said. "I''d prefer players who cause no problems at all." "Ok, but they''re also good at getting through floors," 6 said. "Making a floor impassable is A strategy to get ahead, and using monsters to help fight isn''t the stupidest thing a player has done." "I suppose you have a point..." She sighed again. "All right. Five extra sea creatures won''t break anything. I''ll keep an eye on those players, but no one is in trouble. You may go." He got up. "Thank you." With a nod, he vanished. The Director shook her head, pulling up his player''s files. She had to prepare herself for whatever they were about to do. Cycle 6 (3) Dear Diary, Octavius asked what my teleport level was today. I told him it was 100, and he didn¡¯t believe me. He said it should only be at like 60 max. Then I said I also have cooking and pain resistance at 100, and he now thinks I¡¯m a cheater. I wasn¡¯t quite sure how to respond to that. I mean, technically I¡¯m not. But I got those stats when I was just an NPC. NPCs aren¡¯t supposed to become players, so maybe that part is cheating? I told him there was a glitch in our old dungeon. I¡¯ve heard Mika blame things on glitches before, and everyone accepted it. Octavius grumbled that it wasn¡¯t fair, but he didn¡¯t question it any more. I think that¡¯s good. Oh, I didn¡¯t let him hurt the velociraptors. He totally didn¡¯t understand the concept of them being my friends, so I told him I had a quest to take them to the gingerbread village. He didn¡¯t question that. Which is¡­ Can everything be explained away by saying it¡¯s a glitch or quest? I mean, that would make things easy, but I don¡¯t know how believable it is. I¡¯ll have to ask people about that. Staab played games sometimes, he might know. And I think if I asked Fire she wouldn¡¯t wonder why I¡¯m asking. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Anyways, I took Arby and Kelly. Lex and Tim can go with Avi. I wrote him to let him know. Arby and Kelly aren¡¯t as good at traveling as Lex and Tim. They also don¡¯t understand that they only have one HP and can¡¯t rush into combat. They haven¡¯t died yet because Octavius has made it his goal to keep them alive. He griped for half an hour about ¡°escort missions¡± and how incredibly frustrating they are. But he didn¡¯t question anything. We¡¯re between Floors 15 and 16. The last thing we did today was have tea with Jenny. I explained to Octavius that she won¡¯t fight people who say they want tea, which made him ask if it was possible to do a pacifist run in our old dungeon. I said yes, and that made him happy. We spent our teatime discussing the merits of pacifism, and how it makes life more rewarding. Apparently he liked to play through video games as non-violently as possible, and wished there had been a way of winning in his old dungeon without killing. He¡¯s not a pacifist, and has no problem killing people, but he likes the ¡°challenge¡± of not killing. Which made me miss Avi. Avi is just¡­ simple. He doesn¡¯t like hurting things because hurting things is bad. He likes dinosaurs because dinosaurs are cool. He doesn¡¯t have secret motives for acting how he does. There aren¡¯t complicated layers to why he has his opinions. Octavius is a good guy, but I don¡¯t feel like I know him or his motives. It would take me years to figure it all out. But I know Avi. I might not know everything, but I know what makes him happy and why. And I love him. Plain and simple. I hope he gets to the catgirl floor tomorrow when we do. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 6 (4) Dear Diary, Wellp. I found out why Kimi isn¡¯t talking to Lily. And I¡­ don¡¯t even want to be in the same room as her. I was so mad I didn¡¯t even write. So, yesterday we got to Floor 20, a catgirl floor. Staab was at the diner, so I sat down at his table and asked about glitches and quests. We were having a normal, average conversation when Lily came in and saw us. Talking. In a diner. Like normal people. And she got annoyed. Staab went to the bathroom, and while he was gone Lily told me she ¡°knew¡± what I did with Y while we were alone on Floor 1, and I should stop trying to ¡°get¡± every guy in the group. I will admit, for a few seconds I thought she was talking about the energy drinks. Because that¡¯s the only thing I did with Y that could possibly upset anyone. But nope! She seriously thinks I- I can¡¯t even write it out, the idea is so stupid. With Y. Y. Like, yes, we¡¯re friends, but he still scares me sometimes. I don¡¯t mind his company, but I¡¯m honestly glad Fire was around two cycles ago. There¡¯s safety in numbers. Not to mention Kimi would find a way of making me permanently dead. And Avi¡­ I could never hurt him like that. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I don¡¯t know what Lily was thinking. She¡¯s just stupid. And then to think I¡¯m hitting on Staab, when we were just having a conversation? What, am I supposed to just never speak to men? I can¡¯t be friends with people who aren¡¯t women? I don¡¯t like saying mean things about people. But Lily has always been a self-righteous, manipulative little And I hate her. Usually at this point I say that I¡¯m sure things will work out, and we¡¯ll all be friends again this time next cycle. I can¡¯t say that this time. Lily just wanted to cause trouble. Well, she¡¯s got it. I hope it¡¯s everything she ever wanted. Iiiiin other news, all four velociraptors are now happily living with the gingerbread people. Or at least I presume they¡¯re living happily. The gingerbread people were thrilled when I said I would leave Arby and Kelly with them, so yeah. They almost died a couple times, but Octavius did a good job at protecting them. When we left he said he was glad the mission was over, but that it was fun. And then he asked where I got the mission. I lied and said our Admin has a list of quests we can do. I hope that doesn¡¯t get our Admin in trouble. Or, more likely, I hope our Admin doesn¡¯t get mad at me for saying that. He¡¯ll just have to make up a couple random quests and say he always had them. Which I¡¯m sure he can do. Either that or say I¡¯m a crazy liar. I would be offended by that, but it was a lie. I can¡¯t exactly be mad about being called a liar when I lied. Lily would be mad, but that¡¯s cuz she¡¯s a gaslighter extraordinaire. Oh, we passed the dracoraptor¡¯s floor. They ate Octavius. I almost apologized, but decided not to. They¡¯re more Avi¡¯s friends than mine. He can only barely control them, I just give them food and hope they don¡¯t see me as dessert. If Octavius wishes to dislike the dracoraptors, I will not feel bad about that. Anyways, I have to rest for tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 6 (Avi) Avi made the illusion of a line of trees appear in front of a charging moose and stepped back. The moose skidded to a stop, dirt flying everywhere. Avi held the illusion, letting Frog decapitate the creature. He flinched as it made a strangled noise of pain before vanishing. ¡°Good job,¡± Frog called, pulling all the loot into their party inventory. ¡°Why trees, not your usual?¡± Avi dropped the illusion. ¡°They run through brick walls. Staab said they¡¯re big and strong enough to destroy a real one, and know it. But they¡­ respect trees? I don¡¯t know, it works.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± Frog shrugged, putting his sword away. ¡°Cool.¡± Together they walked to the exit, silently pulling what they wanted into their personal inventories. Frog went through first, hopping down the steps. Avi stepped through the floor''s exit and froze, suddenly finding himself in an office. His heart rate rose as he looked around, wondering if he was in some kind of dungeon principal¡¯s office. A woman in her mid-forties sat behind a big desk, wearing a silk empire dress and pearl jewelry. She looked Avi over with clear blue eyes, judging him. ¡°Have a seat,¡± she ordered. Avi shrank, sliding into a chair facing her, wondering what he''d done wrong. "Avi," she said in a commanding voice. "Player 601. You were sent here from the Quagmire Dungeon, under Administrator 6. Why did he send you?" "I- I don''t know," Avi told her, nervously picking at a cuticle. He wanted to turn invisible. The officialness of the office was making him nervous. The woman stared at him incredulously. "You. Don''t. Know." Clearly that was the wrong answer. "Erm. I- He sent everyone in the group, and I was- was one of the group, so- so I got sent, too. He- He didn''t choose me to send, erm, the group did. I think." Avi wished anyone were here to help. The woman sighed, clearly annoyed. "Did he seriously think I wouldn''t notice this?" "No, he thought you''d notice, and told me to be more¡­" Avi trailed off as she glared at him, realizing the question had been rhetorical. "Sorry." "Do you know who I am?" she asked. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "The- The Director?" he guessed. "Yes. Do you know what that means?" "You¡­ direct? Things?" She sighed again, looking at a screen he couldn''t see. "You are by far the most pathetic soul I have ever met." "Sorry." "Yes I direct things. I am in charge. I am the highest authority you will ever meet. As far as you are concerned, I may as well be god." Avi¡­ didn''t know how to respond to that. "O¡­ k?" The Director took a deep breath. "Never use that word in my presence again." "Sorry." "Avi. Tell me how you became a player. Tell me why your admin decided to send your group to my dungeon. And tell me why you agreed to come." Avi swallowed hard, shrinking further into the chair. "I- I don''t know why, but he made me a catgirl." "Catgirl?" "Erm. Yes. Cat¡­ girl." She blinked and looked back at her screen. "What were you before then?" "A siren." "Very well. Continue." "Erm. So, they all went to Floor 100 and pushed the button before I got there, and they got in trouble for that. They didn''t do it again, but Aya asked me if I wanted to meet the dragon and I did, so I went with her and the Sams, they were mosquitoes back then, but the dragon wasn''t nice, and then on Cycle 40 the System kicked out players who hadn''t reached Floor 100, but since we''d been there, it made all of us players. And then the Admin told us to come here and win to prove¡­ something. I didn¡¯t want to be left behind so I came." The Director frowned for a few seconds before speaking. "He''s aware you weren''t originally players?" "Well, yeah, that''s the whole reason he sent us." "What does he want you to prove?" Avi picked at a cuticle again. "I don''t know. He didn''t tell me." "Did he tell anyone in your group?" "Erm. Maybe Kimi and Aya? He- He talked to them on like Cycle 41 and told them he wanted to send us here. I don''t know exactly what he said, though." She turned to her screen and typed for a while. Avi fidgeted, wondering if he could go. "Did he tell you the stakes?" the Director finally asked. "N- No. He just wants us to win by doing things our way." "You weren''t players on the first cycle, so I presume you don''t know," she said, waving the screen away. "The next time you meet, ask him what will happen to the losers. Maybe then you''ll understand how unbelievably stupid he''s been. Putting his dungeon''s fate in your hands. Hah." Avi hid his hands between his knees. "Pathetic," she muttered, shaking her head. "Sorry," Avi repeated. She sighed, annoyed. ¡°I sincerely hope to never see you again.¡± The Director waved her hand dismissively, and Avi found himself back on the stairs in the dungeon. He slowly sat down, wishing for a closet to hide in. Cycle 6 (5) Dear Diary, I finally got around to asking Fire about quests and glitches and stuff! She said they¡¯re super common, and make all kinds of weird things happen. So I guess they are a good thing to say when people ask about anything weird. That¡¯s good to know. Apparently Lily, now that Kimi and I won¡¯t talk to her, went to Aya and implied her relationship with the Sams is weird. Aya told her that her opinion didn¡¯t matter, and the Sams told her she only thought it was weird because she¡¯d never experienced a proper threesome. And then offered to show her what it was like. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Turns out they do know what the ¡°poison¡± in the chocolate lake does. They asked Staab if he was up for it, and he was. Lily was not. Things are now tense between them. I don¡¯t know what she was expecting. I mean, I could have predicted this would happen, and I¡¯m not all that intuitive. Lily is either super mega dense or desperate for attention and drama. I suspect the latter. I wonder if she¡¯s gonna try something with Mika next. I don¡¯t know what she¡¯d say though. Mika is very confident in who she is. Anyways, nothing exciting has happened. I mean, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯d call anything that ever happens exciting to anyone who isn¡¯t me, but today has just been normal, average dungeon crawling. So yeah. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 6 (Admin) Admin 6 sat in a chair, facing the Director behind her thick mahogany desk. Well, ¡°sat¡± was the wrong word. He was sitting, but his wrists were tied to the armrests so he couldn¡¯t open any screens. The other five Admins watched from various places around the room. Chairs hadn¡¯t been provided for them. ¡°You took NPCs and mobs and made them players,¡± the Director said slowly. ¡°I did not,¡± Admin 6 said calmly. ¡°They figured out how to travel between floors. I fixed the bug, and they found another one. They got to Floor 100 and pushed the reset button all on their own. The System made them players a few cycles after that. I had nothing to do with it.¡± ¡°Records show you communicated with them before they became players,¡± the Director said. ¡°And the other Admins say you asked them to build you a walkway.¡± ¡°Most of the communication was me telling them to stop messing things up, and one of them asking for basil,¡± Admin 6 said truthfully. ¡°Regardless. You communicated with them. You allowed them to become players. You encouraged them. And you chose to send them, not any true player, to the Master Dungeon. You broke every rule I set down.¡± Admin 6 smiled. He''d been dreading this conversation for months, and now that it was happening he had no fear left. ¡°No I didn¡¯t.¡± The Director blinked slowly. ¡°One of your rules is for everything to be in English. I never broke that rule. And you gave specific rules about the colors of magic, which I didn¡¯t break. I had 100 floors, as you ordered, and-¡± ¡°Enough.¡± Admins 2 and 5 were facepalming. Admin 3 was grinning. Admin 6 couldn¡¯t see Admins 1 or 4. The Director took a deep breath. ¡°I am the director. I directed you to not interact with souls that weren¡¯t players more than necessary. You disobeyed this command.¡± ¡°Because it¡¯s st-¡± Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°I wasn¡¯t finished.¡± Admin 6 ground his teeth. ¡°You ignored what I told you to do, and brought a group of random souls into the Master Dungeon,¡± the Director said. ¡°They ruined my carefully-laid plans, and spread chaos through my dungeon. Unless you have a very good reason to keep them here, I have no choice but to send them back to your dungeon and choose ten real players to replace them.¡± ¡°My group deserves to be in the Master Dungeon just as much as any other!¡± he snapped. ¡°They don¡¯t do things by the book, but that¡¯s because they never read it! They¡¯re smart, inventive, artistic, and ten times more likable than any player I¡¯ve ever met! Just because they don¡¯t know what DPS is, or have an obsession with murder, doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re any less deserving than any of your chosen players. The player choosing process was stupid and unfair, and the fact that my girls are winning proves it.¡± Silence. Admin 6 was breathing heavily, glaring at the Director. She watched him thoughtfully. ¡°¡®My girls¡¯,¡± the Director finally said. There was no emphasis on either word, no infliction to show what she was thinking. Admin 6 wasn¡¯t sure how to reply. He knew this was dangerous, but he didn¡¯t know how. The Director glanced at a screen. ¡°Out of your ten chosen ¡®Players¡¯, only six are female. Are you referring to them specifically, or to the whole group as ¡®girls¡¯?¡± ¡°The girls of the group started it,¡± he muttered. ¡°They were catgirl NPCs.¡± Again there was silence. Admin 6 felt the ropes around his wrists grow damp from sweat. He was hot and uncomfortable, and his nose itched. ¡°All right,¡± the Director eventually said. ¡°Here¡¯s what I¡¯ll do: I¡¯m going to put your group into stasis for one cycle, and pull in ten true players. If the players manage to win the cycle, I will keep them in and kick your catgirls out. If they end up between Floors 45 and 59, I will allow your group to remain as players. But. If the group I pull in fails to reach Floor 45, your dungeon loses. No matter what, when this is over, you will be stripped of your memories and privileges and sent to the new world with your dungeon. Do you understand?¡± Admin 6 couldn¡¯t breathe. He stared at the desk, completely frozen. ¡°Administrator 6, do you understand?¡± He inhaled sharply. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡± He dared glance at her face. ¡°May I suggest a group of players to send?¡± ¡°You may suggest. I may ignore your suggestion.¡± ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡± She sat back, looking around the room. ¡°Does anyone else have any suggestions?¡± There was silence for a few seconds as Admin 6 tried to breathe like a normal person. ¡°Don¡¯t put his group in stasis,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Let them watch.¡± ¡°Very well,¡± the Director said, looking at Admin 6. ¡°Make a floor in your dungeon, and they¡¯ll be sent there for the duration of the cycle. As will you, with your privileges stripped.¡± Admin 6 looked down, then back up at her. ¡°Can I use a floor that already exists?¡± Cycle 6 (6)
Dear Diary, Something happened to Avi. He isn¡¯t responding to my messages. I messaged Frog this afternoon and asked what was wrong, and he said something freaked Avi out. Avi isn¡¯t talking at all, and just¡­ keeps hiding. I don¡¯t know what to do. I don¡¯t know how to help. I¡­ This might be my ¡°think the best of everyone¡± side talking, but I don¡¯t think Lily is responsible. If she¡¯d talked to him, he would have talked to Mika, and Mika would have told me. And he wouldn¡¯t be hiding from Frog. So yeah, it has to be bigger than that. Which can only mean the Director or one of the Admins caught on that he isn¡¯t a legit player. If that¡¯s the case, something¡¯s about to happen. I don¡¯t know what, but it can¡¯t be good. I just hope it happens to all of us, and not just him. And I hope Avi doesn¡¯t get blamed for it. Cuz whatever it is, it isn¡¯t his fault. If¡­ I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m just worried about him. I wish we were together this cycle. I need to write about something else, to get my mind off it. Like¡­ Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Right! I found Rusty! She¡¯s one of the wolves on Floor 31! At least I think she is. One of the wolves came to a crashing halt when I yelled ¡°treats!!!¡±, and I¡¯m betting it¡¯s Rusty. Of course, it might not be. Lots of dogs know that word. Oh yeah, the goblins! They had keys for us, and were happy with my payment. Octavius still kinda wanted to kill them. Not enough to do it, but he grumbled about missing out on lots of XP. He¡¯s grumbled about that a lot. I think he kinda regrets being partnered with me this cycle. But it¡¯s just one cycle. He¡¯ll live. Besides, it¡¯s not like we aren¡¯t making good progress. Anyways, I should get some sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
Announcement to All Players: Tonight at midnight some players will be removed and replaced. This will reset the cycle. The eight lowest players will be counted as the winners. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
. . .
From: The Director
To: Admin 6, Avi [Player 601], Aya [Player 602], Kimi [Player 603], Lily [Player 604], Mika [Player 605], Nikki [Player 606], Samuel [Player 607], Samurai [Player 608], Staab [Player 609], Y [Player 610]
Subject: Removal
It has come to my attention that Admin 6 has not followed my directions. You aren¡¯t supposed to be here. Tonight I will send you back to Floor 93 of Quagmire Dungeon and bring ten real players here. You will be allowed to watch their progress. If they win, they will stay. If they manage to pass Floor 45, you will be returned here. If they fail to reach Floor 45, they will be returned to your dungeon, and your dungeon will be out of the running. That is all. Director
Cycle 7 (Calvin) The Ad- Calvin stood in the center of Floor 93, watching the catgirls wander to their old shops. Samurai gave him a confused look, then followed Aya. Calvin took a step towards the tree line, then another, then broke into a run. He climbed the semi-hidden stairs, ran down the walkway, and yanked open the treasure chest. A stone staircase was revealed, partially covered in a golden glow. This was the only Floor where the portal wasn''t obvious. The entrance and exit to the Floor were locked, but the Director hadn''t noticed the third way out. Thankfully. Looking around, Calvin stepped into the chest. He jumped down the steps, quickly coming to a hedge maze. It took him a few minutes to find the entrance on the amusement park side, which was next to the Floor Overseer¡¯s house. For some reason, he hesitated at the door. He didn¡¯t know¡­ Well, he didn¡¯t even know if she was home. He knocked nervously on the door, then waited. After a few seconds he heard footsteps, a pause, and the door opened. Emmy saw Calvin and beamed. She threw her arms around him, holding him tightly. ¡°Hi,¡± he said softly, feeling his tension melt away as he hugged her back. Everything was ok. She was so beautiful, her hair smelled so good, and she was happy to see him. She hadn¡¯t forgotten him. Nothing else mattered. ¡°You¡¯re here,¡± she laughed. ¡°I thought I wouldn¡¯t see you here again.¡± ¡°I would have broken before the year was out,¡± he told her. ¡°Not talking to you was torture.¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. She took half a step back, pulling away to look him in the face. ¡°Is something wrong?¡± Calvin shrugged. ¡°Yeah. But I get to be with you. So it could be worse.¡± Taking his hands, she pulled him inside. ¡°What happened?¡± He looked at their hands, shrugging again as he tried to smile. ¡°They figured out what I was doing. Didn¡¯t like it. Stripped my privileges, sent me to Floor 93.¡± Emmy kicked the door closed, leading him to the couch. ¡°They didn¡¯t¡­ What about¡­¡± She sat down next to him, looking into his face. ¡°Tell me.¡± Calvin leaned back, preferring to look at the ceiling. ¡°The Director didn¡¯t like my sending NPCs instead of players. So this cycle I¡¯m here with the catgirls and co., and she¡¯s taken ten ¡®real¡¯ players to go through her dungeon. If they win, they stay and I get to continue admin-ing. If they¡¯re in the lower quarter when someone else wins, the catgirls get to go back and I get to continue admin-ing. If they¡¯re above Floor 45¡­ I don¡¯t want to think about that.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re stuck waiting?¡± she asked. ¡°Yep.¡± Emmy moved her legs over his knees, leaning her head on his shoulder as she put a hand on his chest. ¡°Calvin¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m tired,¡± he admitted. ¡°When was the last time you slept?¡± she asked quietly. He sighed. ¡°It¡¯s been a few cycles.¡± ¡°You should sleep. And eat; if you¡¯re a player you can¡¯t survive on iced coffee any more.¡± Calvin smiled but didn¡¯t have the energy to think of something snarky. ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t know that,¡± she said after a few seconds. ¡°Can you survive on nothing but iced coffee?¡± ¡°The System kind of presumes everyone will die about once a month, so it doesn¡¯t care about nutrition,¡± he said. ¡°Surviving on iced coffee is possible.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make sure you eat anyway,¡± Emmy decided. ¡°Now that you aren¡¯t an all-mighty and eternal deity, someone has to take care of you.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°No problem.¡± Calvin kissed the top of her head, whispering three words. She moved slightly, smiling up at him. ¡°I love you, too.¡± Cycle 7 (Mika) Dear diary ^.^ It¡¯s good to be home. I missed all my stuff. Even though I can¡¯t find my music books. ?_? It kinda sucks we¡¯ve been replaced and might lose, but I¡¯d be ok with being sent home every seven cycles. There aren¡¯t any guitars over there for me to play on. ??.?l?l?ll|???¡ñ???|???=???|???¡ñ???|ll?l?l?.?? It also kinda sucks that my band is over there. Avi is here, but a drummer and a guitarist do not a full band make. ?(/.__.)/ \(.__.\) Oh well, I¡¯ll survive. -`?¡ä- Samantha gave me a copy of one of the turtles the players here are supposed to find. It¡¯s cute. She says about three quarters of the real ones have been found already. I wonder what will happen when they find the last one. 0.o This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Emmy has the theme park in ¡°spring¡±. There¡¯s flowers everywhere. It¡¯s pretty, if you don¡¯t mind the clouds of pollen wafting across the Floor. ¨y¨z¨|¨~¨€¨ˆ?? ??¨ˆ¨€¨~¨|¨z¨y If I were in charge of a dungeon, I¡¯d make a cloud of pollen sentient and have it attack people. Kind of like the air elementals, but with poison damage that gives you itchy eyes and makes you sneeze. (¨i©n¨i) I think I¡¯d do pretty good, if I were put in charge of designing a dungeon. I have lots of ideas about how to make things interesting. I¡¯d make more unique things than the Admin, at any rate. ? ?? When I¡¯m back in the Master Dungeon I¡¯ll get a notebook and draw out plans for a hypothetical new dungeon. That¡¯ll keep me busy. ^.^ But for now, I need to practice with my guitar¡­ ?©³(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©»(¡ã.¡ã)©·©»(¡ã.¡ã)©¿©³(¡ã.¡ã)©· ? Cycle 7 (Avi) Avi opened the door to Nikki¡¯s flat and stopped. It was a disaster. It looked like a hurricane had gone through the room. Nikki, standing in the middle of the disaster, turned to face him. ¡°What ha-¡± ¡°My diary is gone!¡± she yelled angrily. ¡°I looked everywhere! Someone took it!¡± She groaned, turned, and collapsed face-first onto the bed. Avi sat down next to her. ¡°Why would someone take your diary?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± she said into a pile of shirts. ¡°Probably to read and laugh at.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve lost it before, right?¡± he asked. ¡°Where was it then?¡± ¡°Under the mattress,¡± she grumbled. ¡°I looked there. And under the bed. But I remember putting it in the drawer with my shirts! Specifically! And it¡¯s not there!¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Avi took her hand and started massaging it. ¡°Is anything else gone?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± Nikki said, rolling to face him. ¡°I didn¡¯t notice anything missing.¡± ¡°So someone came up here and specifically took your diary,¡± he said softly. ¡°Yeah.¡± He frowned. ¡°How rude.¡± ¡°I know!¡± She sat up. ¡°Kimi says her diary is where she left it, so it¡¯s just mine that¡¯s missing!¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t checked if my music book is still here,¡± Avi said. ¡°Mika has like a dozen books, I could ask if any of hers are missing? Who else has a diary?¡± ¡°Everyone,¡± she grumbled, collapsing onto her back. Avi brushed hair out of her face. ¡°Maybe the Admin destroyed any diary that talks about how we weren¡¯t always players. At least that way no one is reading it. We weren¡¯t supposed to return, so we wouldn¡¯t have noticed.¡± ¡°That¡¯s still rude,¡± she said, moving close to him. ¡°It¡¯s my diary. If it needed to be destroyed, I should have been the one to do it.¡± She paused, then decisively added, ¡°Nya.¡± He smiled. ¡°Want me to go ask Gin if anyone¡¯s been up here?¡± ¡°No. Stay here and be miserable with me.¡± ¡°Ok.¡± He laid down and cuddled next to her, not miserable at all. Cycle 7 (Kimi) Kimi knocked on Emmy¡¯s door, Avi and Aya standing behind her. It took a few seconds for the Floor Overseer to answer, but when she did she smiled. "Hey," Emmy said. "How can I help you?" "We need to talk to the Admin," Kimi said seriously. Emmy took half a step back. "Why¡­ do you think he''s here?" "Because we''ve seen you holding his hand," Aya said. "Oh." Emmy stepped back, holding the door open. "Have a seat, I''ll¡­ go get him." She turned and headed for a flight of stairs. Kimi glanced back at Aya and Avi, then stepped in. The house was small, with an open floor plan. Kimi debated between the couch and square table, and decided to sit at the table. Avi sat to her right and Aya on her left, leaving the chair across from her open for the Admin. It was a few minutes before they came down, Emmy leading. The Admin had clearly just woken up, and that sight startled Kimi. She was still thinking of him as some¡­ omnipotent, immortal being. Not as Some Guy who just got fired and was crashing at his girlfriend''s place. "I''ll make coffee," Emmy said, heading to the kitchen. "Does anyone else want coffee?" "Thanks," the Admin muttered, stumbling to the table as they all accepted. He flopped into the empty chair, rubbed his face, and looked blearily at Kimi. "Ok. What do you need to talk about?" Kimi decided to skip any preamble. "What happens if we lose?" He blinked a few times, then sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair, straightened his shirt, and adjusted his posture to face her directly. "Do you know what would happen if you win? To the dungeon at large, not just you." "No," Kimi said. She glanced at Aya and Avi, who also shook their heads. "Ok. Every world starts out with several groups of people spread around it. Two of these groups are given an inordinate amount of good luck. Not the individuals, but the race. Those races are destined to take over the world and dominate it," he explained. "Whatever dungeon wins, the souls that inhabit it will be split into those two races in the next world." Emmy handed him a cup of coffee. He thanked her and took a sip while she brought coffee over for everyone else. The Admin waited for everyone to have their drinks before continuing. "To balance out the good luck, two races are given a bunch of bad luck. They are destined to be inexplicably hated by everyone else. They will succeed in nothing but surviving. The dungeon that produces the worst players, so, the dungeon that loses, will be split into the two races with bad luck." Kimi stared at him. "How¡­" "Of course, a ''neutral'' luck is illegal," the Admin said, fiddling with his cup. "The top three dungeons will get positive luck, the losers will get a corresponding amount of negative." He took a sip of coffee. "Well, ''luck'' isn''t really the right word. Karma? Divine favor? I don''t know. Something like that." "How is that fair?" Kimi asked. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. He smiled bitterly. "It''s not." "So winning isn''t just about us, not just about the dungeon, but about our kids and every generation after?" Kimi demanded, pushing herself out of her chair. "Yep," he said, looking her dead in the eye. Kimi saw barely-restrained rage in his eyes and stopped. "You hate it." "Of course I do!" he snapped, nearly snarling. "I never wanted any part of this! Dooming millions of people to a fate like that based on ten people not murdering as good as other people?! Not giving them any chance, any agency in how their lives and the lives of their descendants will play out? I hate every single part of it! And I wasn''t even supposed to talk to you, because heaven forbid I start thinking of you like actual people!¡± The cup in his hands cracked. ¡°I- I did my best, but I have no authority. Maybe if I''d been here a hundred years, but I''m still ''the new guy''. This is how things have always been done, and the Director wants to use this to get a promotion, so there''s no way in hell she''d change things.¡± He looked around the table. ¡°I tried, believe me I tried. You- Your group was my last resort. Beating chess by using checkers pieces. If you won, the whole system would be called into question. There might be some¡­ hope.¡± He set the cup down and shook coffee off his fingers. ¡°If you lost, at least I wouldn''t have to be part of the system any more. I like building worlds, but knowing how the worlds will be used makes me sick." He put his face in his hands. Emmy walked over and rubbed his back. "Calvin¡­" Kimi watched, stunned. By what the Admin had said, and by the fact that he had a name. She glanced at her friends, and they both looked pensive. Having no clue what they were thinking, she did a mental coin toss and turned to the winner. "Avi?" Avi flinched back, but looked determined. "The Director told me you were stupid to send us," he said. "There was too much at stake to risk losing." The Admin took a deep breath."She only said that because you were winning," he said. "She didn''t even notice you weren''t players until she was looking into something unrelated." Aya put a hand on the table. "Was the world we came from a part of the good luck/bad luck system?" ¡°Kinda? Apparently it¡¯s a test-world to see how humans do if they¡¯re the only race on a planet, so by default they got the biggest portion of good luck," the Admin said. "There''s also a kobold world, an elf world, a fairy world¡­ Lots of worlds out there.¡± He gave her a half-shrug. ¡°The rest of the luck was spread to animals. Most of the animals with bad luck died out in the ice age. Cockroaches got second place good luck. Cats got third. As another test, we started out with magic as a finite resource. Humans had access to it until like the twelfth century. The Director comes from a time when magic still existed and is a big fan of it.¡± ¡°Wait,¡± Kimi said. ¡°Wait, so the bad luck can be put on animals?¡± ¡°I guess.¡± He paused, then sat up straight. ¡°It can. It doesn¡¯t have¡­¡± He stared out into space. ¡°How hard would it be to convince the Director to do that?¡± Aya asked. ¡°Probably hard,¡± Avi said. ¡°She¡¯s not very nice.¡± ¡°But if we won,¡± Kimi said. ¡°If we won, and said we don¡¯t want the top prize, would that be enough leverage to convince her to not give anyone bad luck?¡± The Admin tapped his cup with his fingernails a few times, thinking. ¡°It might be. It might not be, but¡­ But her main concern here is looking good on paper. If the other Admins agreed that giving bad luck to a dozen animals was fine, she¡¯d have to do it.¡± ¡°What animals would you curse like that, though?¡± Emmy asked. ¡°Cockroaches,¡± Aya said. Avi smiled. ¡°Slimes.¡± ¡°Maybe we can bring back wooly mammoths and curse them with being extra delicious,¡± Kimi suggested. ¡°The point is, no people would have to suffer.¡± ¡°True,¡± Emmy said softly. ¡°Of course, all this is dependent on us not automatically losing this cycle,¡± the Admin said. ¡°Shut up, we have a plan and it will work,¡± Kimi told him. Aya crossed her arms, smirking. ¡°Yeah. I don¡¯t lose.¡± ¡°Ok then,¡± he shrugged. ¡°The fate of the world is in your hands.¡± Cycle 7 (Sams) Samurai, we need to write a play You write a play. I¡¯ll edit it. Cool ***** Let¡¯s switch next cycle To what? You be me, I¡¯ll be you Ok. Wanna change to blue and green? Nah White and silver? That¡¯d be cool, but I don¡¯t think we get silver as an option Really? Avi has it, so should we. *shrug* If we get silver I wanna try it. Ok ***** Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Hey hey hey hey hey hey he This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. WHAT Can I borrow your shampoo? It smells like flowers. Hmmmm what flowers? Hell if I know, it just says ¡°Floral Scent¡± and makes me smell pretty. I want clean hair, smelling pretty is an acceptable price So is 2 silver, go buy your own. But I¡¯m already in the bathroom FINE use my shampoo, moron. Kthx :) ***** What was that one thing you told me not to do? Pick your nose The other thing. Oh, don¡¯t give your onions to Aya I order burgers without onions. That works Why don¡¯t you? *shrug* ***** SAMUEL WHERE IS MY TOOTHBRUSH? The pink one? YES, THE PINK TOOTHBRUSH. I OWN ONE TOOTHBRUSH AND IT IS PINK. WHERE IS IT? ¡­ SAM! Congratulations! You are the winner of One Brand New Toothbrush, which shall appear in your house within the hour!!! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT? My dear sister You don¡¯t want to know ***** Did you spill something on my hoodie? Yes. Soda. I washed it out. Why were you wearing my hoodie? You have your own Yours are better. Get better hoodies Get more hoodies and give them to me. No Counterargument: yes. You¡¯re impossible Love you too! Cycle 7 (Y) Y sat behind the desk at Kim¡¯s shop, taking apart dynamite. Mika needed gunpowder for an art project, and he was going to see if he could turn the fuses into a scrunchie. Kimi would love a scrunchie made out of dynamite fuses. The shop door opened, and Lily came in. She looked pleased to see Y, which was unusual. ¡°Greetings,¡± he said, setting the bowl of gunpowder aside. ¡°How may I help you?¡± ¡°Are you always so formal?¡± Lily asked, walking to the counter. ¡°I try to be professional as much as possible,¡± he answered. ¡°You of all people should understand that.¡± She smiled tartly. ¡°Professional. The man who claims half the group is his ¡®harem¡¯.¡± ¡°Harems are a very professional arrangement,¡± he said, grinning. ¡°Everyone involved has their role, and it is taken exactly as seriously as it needs to be. They have also agreed to their part, which is very important. You did not agree to be a part, thus you are left out.¡± Lily rolled her eyes. ¡°And¡­ what part does Nikki play?¡± ¡°The Airhead,¡± he said immediately. ¡°She would count as Childhood Friend, but I haven¡¯t known her any longer than anyone else.¡± ¡°Does she know you think of her as an airhead?¡± Lily asked. ¡°Not an, The,¡± he corrected. ¡°Important distinction. And no, she doesn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Forgive me,¡± Lily said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ¡°I think that¡¯s something she should know. After all, you are such good ¡®friends¡¯ it wouldn¡¯t be fair if she didn¡¯t know the truth.¡± ¡°She¡¯s said she doesn¡¯t want to know,¡± Y told her. ¡°Avi asked, and it took him days to get over my calling him The Loli; Nik doesn¡¯t trust my judgment in the slightest.¡± Lily paused, clearly unsure what a loli was. She shook her head. ¡°And what part does Kimi play?¡± ¡°Unfortunately, I cannot tell you. I have been ordered to not use the word.¡± ¡°You¡¯re impossible to talk to,¡± she decided. Y¡¯s smile turned brittle. ¡°No, I simply have a knack for derailing unpleasant conversations. To the annoyance of the people who begin them.¡± ¡°My conversation is unpleasant to you?¡± she asked haughtily. ¡°Not always. But the conversation you were leading to was.¡± ¡°And what was I leading to?¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Y looked her in the eyes. ¡°You were hoping I would say something flattering about Nikki. Then you would imply I¡¯m far too familiar with her. Which I would deny, and then you¡¯d indirectly ask if I slept with her during the three days we were alone together. I would say no, you would ask if I can provide proof, and it would devolve into a loud argument. Which would alert Kim, and you¡¯d tell her my vehement denial was proof of dishonesty. Which would lead to me and Kim arguing, to your delight. Or something along those lines.¡± Her face went through a variety of emotions, and settled back on indifferent superiority. ¡°So you do deny it?¡± ¡°Specificity is important.¡± ¡°You deny that you¡¯re having an affair with Nikki.¡± He sighed. ¡°If I say yes, you¡¯ll ask for proof, which is impossible to get. Which would prolong this conversation. Saying no, the answer you want, would make you end the conversation quickest. I typically don¡¯t approve of falsehoods, but in this case I feel it can be excused. Thus: no, I don¡¯t deny it.¡± She twitched, clearly not having expected that. ¡°You don¡¯t?¡± A dark part of Y¡¯s soul stirred as he grinned, filling his mind with evil ideas. ¡°I do not.¡± ¡°I see. Interesting,¡± she said, watching him suspiciously. ¡°Another interesting thing is that your charm spells rely on the sounds of words,¡± he said, trying to remain casual. ¡°The sounds reach your target, and there the spell takes effect. However, if the sound is prevented from reaching your target, such as when you¡¯re under a silence spell, the charms will not work.¡± He cast Silence behind her. ¡°The spell simply stops sounds from leaving an area, it doesn¡¯t prevent them from entering. So you¡¯ll be able to hear me just fine.¡± Lily took half a step back. ¡°Why-¡± Y teleported over the counter, grabbed her arms, and shoved her against the shelves. A few bottles fell off at the impact, shattering soundlessly on the floor. Lily was Y¡¯s height, but he was stronger and had the advantage of surprise. She struggled uselessly, shouting words he couldn¡¯t hear as he tightened his grip. ¡°You¡¯ve accused Nikki of infidelity just as much as me, but you¡¯ve never asked if she was a willing participant,¡± Y said laughingly as his grin widened. ¡°That was a grave mistake. Confronting me alone was also a mistake, Lily. A very dangerous mistake. I know the rumors you¡¯ve tried to start about me. I know they haven¡¯t been believed. No one believes you any more, Lily. You¡¯ve lied one too many times, Lily. Here¡¯s what will happen: I will let go. You will run away, and never accuse me of anything bad ever again. If you do, I will do bad things. I will do bad things to you. Is this clear, Lily?¡± She nodded desperately. He moved a bit closer, paused, and stepped back. He let go. Lily ran. Y took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, dismissing the silence spell. ¡°Damn, I just threatened to set her on fire.¡± He looked to the top of the stairs and smiled at his wife. He didn¡¯t trust himself to speak. Kimi was leaning against the wall, a worried expression on her face. ¡°You¡­ wouldn¡¯t, right?¡± ¡°No,¡± he said, walking back around the counter. ¡°Her believing the threat is the important thing.¡± ¡°It sounded believable,¡± Kimi said, coming down the stairs. Y picked up a stick of dynamite and paused, waiting for the tremor in his hands to stop. He knew better than to disassemble an explosive with shaking fingers. ¡°Y. What will you do if she tries to start another rumor?¡± ¡°She won¡¯t,¡± he said, his voice low. ¡°Y.¡± He smiled at Kimi. ¡°I¡¯ll let you set her on fire.¡± Cycle 7 (Aya) I¡¯m back home again Things are same, and yet different What will happen next ***** Samantha is odd I don¡¯t understand her yet Don¡¯t know how she feels ***** Players everywhere Looking for tiny turtles. Must ask Admin why ***** Something scared Lily Hasn¡¯t left her room today The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Wonder what it was ***** I wish there were cars Walking everywhere is slow I am impatient ***** Fate, precarious The next world might be wretched I hope we can win ***** I would like to punch A hole straight through the dumb face Of the Director ***** How do people eat With two little bamboo twigs I don¡¯t get chopsticks ***** It is not a law To eat sushi with chopsticks Stuff it, Samurai ***** Haircut time again Long, short, curls, straight, yellow, blonde What to go with next Cycle 7 (Lily) Diaries are stupid and pointless. There¡¯s no benefit to writing things down just for the sake of writing them down. Goodbye. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. . . . Cycle 7 (Emmy) Emmy yawned, walking out of her kitchen with a cup of coffee. Suddenly she was in an office. She blinked, then tightly clutched her cup as she turned around. A woman with dark red hair in a tight bun sat behind a desk. ¡°Hello, Emily, please take a seat,¡± she said formally, motioning to the chair across from her. Her accent was odd, almost a New York accent, but with traces of something else. It felt old, without her voice sounding it. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± Emmy said, moving as quickly as she could without spilling her coffee. ¡°Do you know who I am?¡± the woman asked, waving a hand. Emmy¡¯s coffee vanished. ¡°The¡­ Director.¡± ¡°Correct. I am in charge. I have been in charge for just over nine hundred years. I make laws. I expect them to be followed. They, currently, aren¡¯t being followed.¡± Emmy fidgeted in her chair. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°Sweetheart, you don¡¯t need to be sorry,¡± the Director said. ¡°You don¡¯t know the laws. More importantly, you don¡¯t know why they exist. Before I move forward, I need you to understand why the laws Calvin broke are in place.¡± ¡°I¡­ I know why you wouldn¡¯t want to tell people¡­ what he¡¯s told me. You can erase memories, just get rid of the knowledge I have, it¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°I can do much more than that, and so can he,¡± the Director said, sitting back. ¡°That¡¯s the problem. Memories are nothing, it¡¯s feelings and emotions that are dangerous. I made a law saying Admins should not interact with non-players more than strictly necessary. There¡¯s a law saying they shouldn¡¯t befriend the non-players. They should, as much as possible, forget non-players exist. Make sure they have what they need to live, make sure none are in pain, and forget about them. Do you know why?¡± Emmy hesitated, eyes darting around the room. ¡°No.¡± ¡°I will briefly change the subject. You are what is colloquially known in English as a ¡®soul¡¯. You are a collection of feelings and memories, of emotions and desires. The body you currently inhabit is an altered recreation of what you used to be. It can be changed without changing you." She reached under her desk and brought out a black and white Russian doll. "Souls tend to react to things in absolutes. Like this. Black and white. Yes, no, good, bad, love, hate. If given the option between cake or broccoli, automatically we''d pick cake. Cake good, broccoli bad. But." She opened the doll, showing the next one down had a white design outlined in grey on a black background. "We know things aren''t always that way. If the cake were moldy and the broccoli were covered in cheese, we''d choose the broccoli. Still, cake normally is better than broccoli." She opened the second doll, revealing a third with equal amounts of grey, black and white. "But perhaps we''re malnourished. Perhaps we''re allergic to something in the cake. We would still prefer cake, but there are questions we need to ask before eating either." She opened the doll and showed the smallest one was just swirls of grey. "And then when we think it over, we recognize there are always questions. There are always things to ask before making any decision. Our first reaction might be wrong, but to decide that we need to stop and think. Do you understand?" Emmy nodded slowly. "I don''t know why you''re telling me this, but I understand the concept." The Director smiled patiently, setting the four dolls in a row between them. "Black and white can be reversed," she said. She touched the biggest doll. "Admins can change the base feelings of players. Normally, a soul wouldn''t want to go through the stress and pain of killing dozens of living beings over and over again for years on end. So Admins simply changed ''pain bad'' to ''pain good''. Obviously any amount of reflection would make players realize pain was bad, but their initial, base reaction to seeing someone run at them with a sword is ''good''." She looked at Emmy, touching the second then third doll. "With non-players, Admins have authority to get here. They can change any emotion, and you have almost no power to reason through it." She touched the biggest doll. "You like broccoli." The second doll. "There are very few circumstances in which you would prefer cake." The third doll. "You have questions, but if the answers are good you''ll take the broccoli." The fourth doll. "But wait, broccoli tastes terrible while cake tastes good, why do you keep choosing broccoli?" Emmy felt her heart speed up as she realized what the Director was saying. What she was implying. "N-" The Director touched the biggest doll again. "You find the Admin attractive." She moved her hand to the second doll. "There may be a red flag or two, but you really do like him." She picked up the third doll. "All relationships have problems, you should stay with him." She set it down. "And he can change your appearance to whatever he likes best. He controls the world you live in; he can give you literally anything you want. And if you rebel, he can turn you into a goldfish and feed you to sharks twice a day. Who''s to say he can''t? I trusted him enough to give him near-absolute power, why would I second-guess his punishment system? Why would I request he explain his actions? After Cycle 5 I barely paid attention to what his actions even were, I was too busy." "He wouldn''t change me," Emmy said, her voice faltering. "Calvin loves me. He wouldn''t abuse his power to¡­" "I have your file here," the Director said, waving a screen into existence. "He changed your race. He changed your hair color. He made you a house. I suspect he made the whole floor for you, even if others use it. Would you like to know how many times he''s changed your soul?" "He wouldn''t," Emmy repeated, almost desperate. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. "I''m sorry, sweetheart, but he has. Would you like to know how many times?" ***** Calvin rolled out of bed at about eleven, wishing he could still magically make coffee appear. For some reason he hadn''t made that an official spell. After showering and getting dressed, he wandered downstairs to make lunch. Emmy wasn''t at her desk. She wasn''t in the kitchen. She wasn''t anywhere in the house. Shrugging, he opened a message box.
From: Calvin [Player 6]
To: Emmy [Item 971]
Subject: (empty)
Gonna reheat the pizza for lunch unless you have a better idea.
He hit send, and a new box appeared.
ERROR: Item not found.
Calvin paused. Slowly, he checked the name and number. He double-checked it against a message he''d sent her the day before. It was correct. He tried to send the message again.
ERROR: Item not found.
The only way an item wouldn''t be found¡­ was if it wasn''t in the dungeon. Calvin panicked. He bolted out of the house, ran through the maze, jumped up the stairs, fell off the walkway, landed on the diner''s roof, rolled off, hit the ground, and scrambled to the center.
From: Calvin [Player 6]
To: The Director
Subject: (empty)
WHERE IS SHE GIVE HER BACK
He paced around the respawn point, hands in his pockets so they didn''t shake. He got a message.
From: The Director
To: Calvin [Player 6]
Subject: Re:
I''m just having a chat with your pretty little toy. Almost done, not to worry.
Calvin glared at the box, heart beating so fast it hurt. What was she doing to Emmy? What was she saying? What was she changing? He hated not knowing. More than that, he hated being powerless. He couldn''t undo anything the Director did. He wouldn''t even be able to see what she''d done. He paced back and forth some more, wanting to scream and cry and fight. Finally a golden shimmer appeared over the respawn point, and Emmy popped onto the floor. Calvin nearly tackled her in a hug. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as his heart rate slowed. She stood there stiffly for a few seconds, then pushed him back enough to look him in the eye. "Calvin. Why didn''t you tell me you''ve changed me?" He blinked, confusion muddying the cloud of relief in his mind. "I¡­ presumed you''d notice you weren''t a kobold?" "No," she snapped, her anger surprising him. "Not what I look like! My emotions! How I feel, who I am!" She pushed him away, glaring. "Oh. That," he said stupidly. "I¡­ couldn''t." "That isn''t a valid argument," she bit out. "You''ve told me plenty of things you shouldn''t have." His stupidity continued. "You didn''t ask." Emmy screamed through clenched teeth. "How could I ask?" she demanded. "I didn''t suspect part of your job included psychopathic brainwashing! And then you went ahead and changed my soul six times? What did you do to me?!" "If I had the ability I''d show you," he said, finally catching up. "Emmy, I swear I didn''t change much. I¡¯d never change how you feel about anyone, especially me." "Then what did you change?" she growled, hatred radiating off her. Calvin tried to speak as calmly as possible. "From what you were originally, I gave you default kobold mob changes. That''s a desire to fight players, defend your floor, defend the dragon, respect the dragon as a leader, don''t talk about your village in front of the players¡­ I think that''s it. Then when you won the blacksmith competition I switched you from kobold mob to catgirl settings. Tend your shop, keep it clean, stay there and wait for players, be polite¡­ Something about not letting them know you have a life, I don''t know. Then the cycle ended and I switched you back to kobold mob. Back to catgirl and back to kobold on Cycle¡­ whatever it was. Then when I made you floor overseer I took away the kobold things and made you want to walk around the park once a day thinking of improvements. That''s it. That''s all. I''ll swear on anything you want me to swear on: I never changed anything about you to please myself." She looked away, tears in her eyes. "I want to believe that. But I don''t know why I want to believe it." "Emmy, please," he said softly. "I love you, I would never betray you like that." "Calvin," she said, still not looking at him. "I''m going home. I''d appreciate it if you stayed here." He stood there, stunned. He couldn''t think of anything to say. Emmy walked into the forest, heading for the walkway. When she was out of sight, Calvin spun around and glared up at the ceiling. "Are you happy now?" he screamed. Cycle 7 (Gigi) Dear diary The players are all gone now. Back to boredom, yay. The catgirls have been replaced with other people. I recognized the players from the old dungeon. I wonder why. Maybe each dungeon has two groups of players? I don¡¯t know the others well enough to specifically notice if they¡¯ve been replaced. Yet. Give it another dozen cycles and I might. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. There aren¡¯t any marbles in this dungeon. Or at least I haven¡¯t seen any. Someone ought to have offered to pay me with them by now. It would be weird if marbles were an our-Admin-only thing. I could ask the other catgirls. Athena is really pushing for us to communicate and become friends, but there¡¯s something strange about her. Like she has an agenda somehow. I don¡¯t know what that agenda would be. We can¡¯t move around here like we could in my old dungeon. So there can¡¯t be any big Catgirl Reunion or anything. Maybe she just wants to gossip about players. We¡¯ll see. Still, being able to communicate with everyone in the dungeon is nice. Well, everyone who wants to communicate. Some people haven¡¯t added their names to the spreadsheet yet. I still need to refresh the bedroom listing. Not that there¡¯s any rush, but¡­ Yeah. I¡¯ll go do that. Gigi Cycle 8 (Director) The Director looked at her screen, ignoring the people in her office. Five Administrators stood, waiting for her verdict. Administrator 6 sat in the only chair, hatred peeling off him in waves as he glared at her. The Director had never seen hatred from this close before. She¡¯d seen it from far away, and aimed at others, but the palpable loathing coming from 6 was something new. It amused her. ¡°When the eighth player hit the reset button, your players were on Floor 51,¡± she announced, finally looking at him. ¡°Therefore, you do not automatically lose. Your chosen ¡®players¡¯ will be allowed to continue, and you will have your privileges returned.¡± Admin 6 nodded sharply, still glaring. ¡°However, I will change some things,¡± she continued. ¡°Your ¡®players¡¯ have levels all the way up to 100. The maximum any real player has is 60. The average is 49. Therefore, I will cut your player¡¯s levels down to a max of 50. As they gained their reset wins by cheating with level 100 spells and such, I will nullify their wins. Do you understand?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he bit out. ¡°Good. I will also not remove any players when we reach Cycle 15. More competition is always better.¡± She closed her screen and faced Admin 6 directly. ¡°That leaves you. You will be allowed to work alongside the other Admins, but I won¡¯t allow you to communicate with them. I will remove your voice, and every message you send will be relayed to me first. If you send too many messages, I will block you from sending any. Do you understand?¡± Admin 6 glared as the other Admins moved uncomfortably, glancing at each other. ¡°Administrator 6, do you-¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he snapped, snarling. ¡°I understand perfectly. You want to punish me for daring to prove you wrong. You think you¡¯re so far above everyone else-¡± Stolen story; please report. ¡°Enough.¡± ¡°-you can¡¯t even fathom that the people in the dungeons can be our friends! You¡¯ve forgotten that the people in the dungeons are under our care, they¡¯re not our property! We have to-¡± ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°-treat them like beings with thoughts and emotions, because they are! You¡¯ve been here so long you¡¯ve lost your empathy and humanity, and just because I haven¡¯t, you have to isolate me until I bre-¡± The Director removed his voice. Admin 6 staggered, his eyes going wide. If he hadn¡¯t been tied to the chair he probably would have fallen to the ground. He stared blankly at the floor, breathing with ragged gasps. ¡°Administrator 6,¡± the Director said, slowly standing. She looked down at him impassively as his eyes darted upwards. ¡°I have lost my humanity. Nearly a millennium ago I left my humanity behind and became something better. We are what humans aspire to be. I know this because you chose to become one of us when your life on Earth ended. You were given immortality, knowledge, authority, and now you choose to throw it all away.¡± The fear had bled from his face, and he was glaring again. ¡°You don¡¯t deserve to be here,¡± she told him. ¡°And yet, you have a job to do. Go. Finish building the world you and your ¡®friends¡¯ will inhabit.¡± She waved her hand, and the ropes on his wrists vanished. Very slowly, Admin 6 stood. He glared at her, fists clenched so tight his knuckles went white. They both knew there was nothing he could do to hurt her. He turned around and vanished. The Director sat back down, looking around the room. Admins 2, 3, and 4 walked out. Admins 1 and 5 stayed. ¡°Wasn¡¯t that a bit harsh?¡± Admin 1 asked. ¡°No,¡± the Director answered immediately. Admin 5 shook her head. ¡°I¡¯m not saying I agree with him, but I understand his point of view.¡± ¡°And?¡± ¡°And¡­ making him mute isn¡¯t going to accomplish anything.¡± The Director smiled. ¡°Certainly it will. It will be a constant reminder of who is in control.¡± The Admins shared a nervous glance. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± Admin 1 said. Admin 5 took a deep breath. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡± Cycle 8 (1) Dear Diary, We¡¯re back! Woo! And my inventory is intact, so you¡¯re still here, diary dearest. Unlike my old diary back home, which was GONE! Someone took it! I¡¯m super mad about that, and will never ever get over the loss. Anyways, we¡¯re elves this cycle! Elf hair is usually ¡°normal¡± hair color, with undertones of your magic color. Like highlights. But I told the System that my hair color is dark green, so my hair as an elf is just¡­ green with more green. Avi told the System his hair is white. So he¡¯s kinda got platinum hair. I don¡¯t like white hair. Unless it¡¯s on old people. I like Avi, but I don¡¯t have to like white hair. I kinda wish he¡¯d turn it black. And yes he knows my opinion on his hair. He says he thinks it¡¯s elegant and respectable. So whatever. Iiiin other news, this cycle we¡¯re allowed to make parties of any number we want, as long as it has people from two groups in it. So Avi and I are in a party with Kimi, Y, Fire, and Steel. Six is a good number for a party. Aya and the Sams have joined Frog¡¯s team. That makes seven of us from Admin 6¡¯s group teaming up with six from Admin 4¡¯s group. I feel like we should go over and meet the other four people in their group, and all become friends. Everyone being friends would be good. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Mika is with Bacon again, just the two of them. I don¡¯t know how, but Bacon got her hair to look like, well, bacon. It¡¯s long and wavy, and is a dark reddish-brown with blonde stripes. I¡¯m impressed, but mostly wonder how long it took her to get it to look like that. ¡­I bet she can tell Mika the secret to getting rainbow hair. That leaves Staab and Lily, who are with Hash and 9. I guess they get along pretty well. I wouldn¡¯t know, because I haven¡¯t spoken to Lily in like a cycle and a half. So yeah, that¡¯s where everyone is. Last cycle everyone was in parties of five, as humans. We were back home, but there was a¡­ scoreboard type thing in Avi¡¯s inn. It showed where all the parties were. I checked every day. I didn¡¯t want it to be a surprise when we were brought back. I know Larissa, Ox and Tig were part of the group that replaced us, but I don¡¯t know who the other seven were. I didn¡¯t ever really get to know the rest of the players, so I didn¡¯t notice anyone else missing. Oh! Floor 1 was super different. There¡¯s a whole village for the players there. One of the taverns has a section for ¡°working¡±, with cubicles and computer type things where a couple people did¡­ something. I didn¡¯t ask what they were doing, since they looked very focused. All the other Floors were the same. The secret floor isn¡¯t a secret any more, so I guess that¡¯s different. It was Spring themed, which mostly means it was full of flowers. It was pretty. It was weird being home without the kobolds being there, though. The kobolds have been a constant with us for what feels like forever. Not being able to talk to Nat was¡­ weird. That¡¯s about it from our time away; nothing really happened. We¡¯re back now, and have a day full of dungeon crawling tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 8 (2) Dear Diary, I like being with Steel and Fire. Our group still has an even split of completely insane people to weird people who are along for the ride. ¡­Fire, Kimi and Y being the completely insane people. Me, Avi and Steel are the slightly weird people. Steel is totally in favor of feeding everything in the dungeon to become friends with it. Fire said that won¡¯t work on some floors, and we agreed, but it works for a lot of them. We kidnapped Lex and Tim, because we¡¯re us, and Fire asked what the benefit was. Avi handed her Lex, who immediately started snuggling, and Fire has decided next cycle she and Steel will be kidnapping Arby and Kelly. So it won¡¯t just be us who kidnaps things any more! Yay! Even though the only bad thing about kidnapping animals was that we were the only ones who did it. That would have caught the Director¡¯s attention, which would have been bad. But we already caught her attention. She knows we weren¡¯t always players, and she allowed us to come back anyway. So¡­ we don¡¯t have to worry about being weird any more? We can do anything we want. This knowledge feels powerful. I mean, it wasn¡¯t like we were about to do something then thought ¡°oh, better not, it might be not-player-like¡±. But there was always this feeling of¡­ if we should or not. And then we usually did it anyways. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. If we can do anything¡­ So, the Sams once wanted to dig a tunnel from one Floor to the next. I wonder if we could do that here. Kimi and Y know how to blow things up, I bet they could blow a hole through a Floor if we collected enough sulfur and dynamite. It probably wouldn¡¯t be too hard. And the wolves know how to follow us. Their HP will go down to 1, but they¡¯ve still got good attack stats. We could probably kidnap the whole pack, easy. !!! WE COULD KIDNAP THE WHOLE PACK, EASY! Ok. When we get to Floor 38 I will suggest we kidnap all the wolves. I bet Fire would love to ride a dire wolf into battle. I mean, we¡¯d all love to ride dire wolves into battle, but didn¡¯t on the basis of not wanting to look weird. But if we don¡¯t care about looking weird, we can do anything! What other things could we do¡­ I wonder if the lavender could be cooked into food and still give charm poison. Like muffins or something. Then I could just throw a bunch of muffins into the dark floor that we still don¡¯t know what¡¯s on, and when everything goes quiet we could light it up and find out what lives there! Or I could bake chocolate from the lake into cookies and throw them in, then¡­ That¡¯s a horrible idea. I wonder what would happen if I baked lavender and chocolate into a muffin. Cuz the chocolate is poison, but the lavender is charm. So it wouldn¡¯t combine into some unknown thing. Ok, I¡¯ve got to try that. It''s a horrible, terrible idea, but I need to try it. I am prepared to accept whatever happens. I have to ask Steel if he knows what the chocolate does before I collect some. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 8 (3) Dear Diary, So, I don¡¯t like drama. I don¡¯t pry into people¡¯s personal lives. If I have questions, usually I¡¯m doomed to never know the answer. Thankfully Kimi has absolutely zero problems asking personal questions. Thus, I now know that Fire and Steel have never previously discussed their relationship. They¡¯re taking some time tonight to do so and figure out what exactly is going on. Apparently back in their old dungeon, when everything started, Steel was in a team with his brother. Fire was by herself, and they needed a magic user, so they invited her to join. A couple cycles later, Steel¡¯s brother wanted to join another group, but that group kept making fun of Fire for not walking. There was a huge argument, Steel decided to stay with Fire, and his brother went with the other group. And that¡¯s how Fire and Steel became a team. And apparently they never talked about feelings, ever. Which honestly doesn¡¯t surprise me all that much, Fire doesn¡¯t seem like a feelings person. I¡¯m glad they¡¯re finally talking things over. Anyways, the poison gummy bears continue to be horrible. A small part of me wondered if the different colors had different flavors. Today I discovered they do. Now that I know, I never have to eat another gummy bear as long as I live. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. At some point I¡¯m probably gonna develop gummy bear PTSD. Fifty years from now, long after we¡¯re out of the dungeon, someone will offer me a bag of gummy bears and I¡¯ll just run away screaming. Lex and Tim are already afraid of them, and they¡¯re not really afraid of anything. Although I will admit, seeing two velociraptors running around us in terror being chased by a bunch of little gummy bears¡­ It was cute, I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m not saying I want it to happen again, but if we ever get a camera I¡¯m totally going to record that. Oh, we¡¯re on Floor 20. Staab and Lily are here. Lily is avoiding us. I find that amusing. Well, ok, mostly I think she¡¯s avoiding Y. I kinda wonder if she got him mad, and he snapped. Getting Y mad is difficult, but he gets scary when he¡¯s mad. She might not have known that. But hey, if it means she never talks to us again, I¡¯m fine with whatever he did. That¡¯s what she gets for lying and spreading rumors. Nya. In other news, I¡¯ve started writing names in the back of this book. The catgirls here are named Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Grace and Bliss. Which is¡­ a theme. Yes. The catgirls on Floor 10 are Ala, Ele, Ili, Olo, Ulu and Yly. Which is also¡­ a theme. I¡¯m glad our Admin¡¯s theme for catgirl names was ¡°cute sounding¡±, and not¡­ whatever those girl¡¯s Admin had. I mean, when the spy on Floor 10 told me the last girl¡¯s name was ¡°Yil-lee¡± I drew a complete blank on how to spell it. I can¡¯t imagine waking up and discovering my name was a consonant sandwiched between two Y¡¯s, with no clue how to pronounce it. Overall, I think our Admin did a pretty good job at giving people new names. Better than some of the other Admins, at least. I mean, the zombies on Floor 5 all have names that start with Z. Which just feels like a bad clich¨¦. I should write him and thank him for not using bad clich¨¦s to name us. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 8 (Admin 5) Admin 5 frowned as Admin 6 vanished. He¡¯d been doing that lately; leaving for hours at a time on a semi-regular basis. She¡¯d wondered where he was going and what he was doing, but it was impossible to ask. Even if she could ask, he literally couldn¡¯t answer. ¡°Fine,¡± Admin 1 sighed. ¡°Who wants to go see what he¡¯s up to?¡± Admin 5 pushed her chair back. ¡°I will.¡± They all watched her silently as she moved to 6¡¯s station and checked his location. He was in the Void, with no screens active. Even more curious, 5 teleported herself to near his location. The Void, the empty buffer zone between dimensions, stretched out around her. She squinted down, and could almost see a dead planet hanging beneath her. But she wasn¡¯t here to see that. She looked around and spotted a dark form curled up on the ground. Admin 5 walked quietly to Admin 6, confused. And then she realized what he was doing. ¡°Are you asleep?¡± she asked, incredulous. In reply he held up his middle finger to her. ¡°You know we don¡¯t need sleep, right?¡± He curled into a tighter ball. ¡°You can¡¯t waste hours being unconscious,¡± she told him. ¡°We have work to do.¡± Admin 6 sighed, sitting up. He rubbed his face, then looked at her critically. ¡°Yes?¡± He summoned a screen and typed.
Will you help me with something? And not tell the Director?
Admin 5 hesitated. ¡°Maybe¡­¡± He nodded, getting to his feet.
Open Master List
5 felt curiosity get the better of her. She opened the list of every soul in all dungeons, allowing him to see it. 6 scrolled to his dungeon, quickly scanning through until he found the soul he wanted. He pointed at it. ¡°You want me to summon her?¡± 5 guessed. He nodded. With a shrug, Admin 5 pulled Item 930 into the Void. A catgirl with brown hair appeared, her hand clutching the pendant of a necklace. She saw them and took a step back, worried. Admin 6 walked up to her, smiled, and pulled up her Alterations sheet. He turned to Admin 5 and typed.
Verify
¡°What?¡± she asked. ¡°No, she can¡¯t see that!¡± She waved the screen away. ¡°Calvin, what¡¯s going on?¡± the catgirl asked, her voice low. 5 jerked back in shock. ¡°You told her your name?¡± she demanded. ¡°You¡¯re completely irredeemable!¡± 6 winced, typing again. He hesitated, looking ashamed, before allowing them to see his words.
Irredeemably in love.
Both women rolled their eyes. They saw each other eye-rolling and shared a smile. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you speaking?¡± the catgirl asked 6. He looked at 5. Admin 5 debated. This was absolutely against the rules. Nothing about this was right. And yet¡­ She knew Admin 6 had never been happy when dealing with souls. There were many things he couldn¡¯t reconcile. If he¡¯d fallen in love and wanted to give up everything to be with this woman, then his choice had already been made. Her helping or not helping wouldn¡¯t matter. ¡°He can¡¯t,¡± 5 said, glancing around to make sure they were alone. ¡°The Director removed his voice. She also filters what messages he can send.¡± ¡°She- So that¡¯s why¡­¡± The catgirl went pale, ears going back against her skull. ¡°Does she read all incoming messages?¡± Admin 6 nodded slowly. The catgirl turned a deep shade of red. ¡°Uhh¡­¡± ¡°What did you write?¡± 5 asked, very much wanting to know. Admin 6 shook his head, pulling up the catgirl¡¯s Alterations sheet again. He pointed at Admin 5 and motioned to the screen. ¡°This goes against everything,¡± she said, focusing on it. ¡°What do you want me to verify?¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Item 930 - Emmy
SOUL ALTERATIONS Cycle 0 - Default Kobold > Cycle 45 - Default Catgirl > Cycle 46 - Default Kobold > Cycle 50 - Default Catgirl > Cycle 50 - Default Kobold > Cycle 52 - Floor Overseer >
Emmy looked at the screen as well. ¡°The Director implied he¡­¡± ¡°Forced you to love him?¡± 5 guessed. She hit the dropdowns, scanning them. ¡°The first five are about as average as you can get. The Floor Overseer makes you want to be creative, but nothing nefarious.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± she said softly, turning to 6. ¡°I didn¡¯t believe you because- because I was a catgirl for Floor 93 three times. Why didn¡¯t you change me the second time?¡± He frowned, remembered something, and started typing.
The second time was only a few days. Changes in quick succession can go wrong.
¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Admin 5 confirmed, waving the Alterations screen away. 6 nodded at her in thanks, taking Emmy¡¯s hand. ¡°Thank you for¡­ verifying,¡± Emmy told Admin 5. ¡°You¡¯re quite welcome.¡± 5 looked between them and realized she was no longer wanted. She pointed at 6. ¡°You have work to do, don¡¯t stay here forever.¡± With a flick of her wrist she was back with the other Admins. She took her seat, summoning a tea. The four men watched her. ¡°Well?¡± Admin 1 asked. ¡°He¡¯s asleep,¡± she said, looking over. ¡°Apparently he¡¯s been sleeping.¡± Admin 3 snorted. ¡°What a waste of time.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I told him,¡± she shrugged. ¡°I warned him that he¡¯ll fall behind, but he doesn¡¯t care.¡± They all shook their heads, disappointed. ***** Calvin smiled at Emmy. He had so many things he needed to say. And he couldn¡¯t say any of them. His grip tightened as frustration boiled. He couldn¡¯t tell her any of the thousand things he wanted to. Suddenly her smile vanished with a yelp of pain, and she pulled her hand away from his. She rubbed it, giving him a confused look. He opened his mouth to apologize, and¡­ no words came out. He couldn''t even apologize. Calvin sank to the ground, staring blankly. He couldn''t. Do. Anything. Nothing. At least¡­ At least Emmy knew he hadn''t forced her to care for him. And why he hadn''t been able to respond to her messages. Out of habit he opened his mouth again, taking a breath to explain, and remembered he couldn''t speak. Emmy knelt in front of him, touching his face. He saw her fingers come away with tears and hunched over, pressing his face into his knees. ¡°Calvin, it¡¯s ok,¡± she told him softly. ¡°It¡¯ll be all right.¡± He shook his head, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands. ¡°Will¡­ Will you ever be able to speak to me again?¡± He shrugged helplessly. ¡°We-¡± She paused, running her fingers through his hair. ¡°We have a plan. Right? Things will work out. I know they will. I love you.¡± Calvin looked up into her eyes. She had so much faith in him. He couldn''t disappoint her. He sat back on his heels, wiping his face as he summoned a screen.
I love you. I need you. Will you marry me?
Emmy looked at the screen for a long time, a soft smile on her face. ¡°No,¡± she decided. Calvin stared at her, his heart shattering. ¡°Not here,¡± she said, taking his hands again. ¡°Not now. I can keep it secret that I''m in love with you. I can hold my tongue when my friends ask when I''m going to start dating again. I- I can spend every day knowing I can''t tell anyone how much I miss you. I can live cut off from my boyfriend. But I wouldn''t be able to do any of that if¡­ if I was your wife.¡± He watched her for a few seconds, then cleared the screen and typed again.
And when this is over?
¡°Once we¡¯re able to live together openly, then I''ll marry you,¡± she promised. Calvin smiled. Then looked away and typed.
I¡¯m sorry I screwed this up. I''m sorry I made this so hard on you. I¡¯m sorry I haven''t been able to reply to any of your messages. I¡¯m sorry I¡¯m afraid of what would happen if you told your friends. I¡¯m sorry I don''t know how to
Emmy pulled his hands off the keyboard and kissed him. ¡°Stop. Just stop. It¡¯s ok.¡± He put his arms around her, kissing her again. They hadn''t been able to say goodbye before he¡¯d been pulled from the dungeon. He¡¯d been so worried that he¡¯d never be able to see her again, that her telling him to leave would be their last interaction ever. He poured his releif and love into the kiss, feeling her respond in kind. Finally she broke away, breathing hard. ¡°How much time do we have?¡± He shook his head, sitting back again. He couldn''t risk anyone deciding to check in on him and finding her here. She looked around at the void. ¡°I''m not supposed to be here, am I? Where is here?¡± Admin 6 pulled a hand off her waist to type.
The Void. The space between worlds. Below us is the world the dungeons are in. Above is the world we¡¯ll go to when this is over.
Emmy looked down, then up, then back at him. ¡°I don''t see anything, just grey.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Will¡­ When will I see you next?¡± He shrugged again, pulling her closer. ¡°So this is another goodbye?¡± Calvin nodded. ¡°Is there any way for us to communicate?¡± He shook his head. Emmy sighed, leaning against him. ¡°Is there any way I''ll ever be able to punch the Director in her stupid face?¡± He smiled, typing.
I¡¯ll see what I can do.
Cycle 8 (4) Dear Diary, The chocolate lake is on Floor 29. The chef catgirl on Floor 30, Amber, now knows about the ¡°poison¡± and wants me to give her buckets of the stuff so she can sell it. I gave her what I had, and together we made pudding. Fire trusts me enough that when I gave her a cup and told her to go split it with Steel, she didn¡¯t question it. She only questioned it when Kimi came by and said she was gonna ask how they liked it tomorrow. With a big grin and wiggling eyebrows. Oh yeah! Fire and Steel have decided they are, in fact, in a relationship. As of yesterday it is a romantic relationship. Thing is, they treat each other a lot like how Avi and I treat each other. But Avi and I, if anyone asks, say we¡¯re married. We passed through the ¡°awkward crush¡± and ¡°new love¡± phases long ago. Now it¡¯s just a comfy¡­ togetherness. Fire and Steel reached the comfy togetherness phase without going through the other phases, and now don¡¯t know what to do. Thankfully they¡¯re in a group with four people who are perfectly willing to give them advice. And¡­ other things. Avi, in his spare time, has been making hats for Lex and Tim. They keep eating them. Tonight he finally got Tim to understand the concept of ¡°hat¡±, and was trying to convince Mika to draw a portrait of the hat-wearing velociraptor. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I believe this is Item #57 on the list of Things That Will Never Happen, but he¡¯s determined. I¡¯m gonna tell him to give up and come have dessert with me. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Admin 6 glanced at the pen and paper he¡¯d summoned an hour earlier, still hesitating. All he had to do was pick them up, write something, and slide it over to 5. She¡¯d help. He knew she¡¯d help. It would be easy. He took a deep breath, and chickened out. He teleported himself to the Void. He couldn¡¯t get into his dungeon, so this was the most private place he had. Admin 6 paced back and forth for a few seconds, then pulled up his stats screen. He hit the ¡°Mute¡± debuff, and stared at the greyed-out ¡°Remove¡± button. He pressed it. Nothing happened. He pressed it again and again, silently screaming as it remained grey and the debuff remained active. A hand landed on his shoulder. He spun, snarling, and found Admin 1 behind him. The man watched him impassively for a moment, then backed away and opened a private screen. ¡°You don¡¯t follow rules,¡± Admin 1 said, typing. ¡°I don¡¯t understand how you think. The one time I visited you, I was eaten by a dinosaur.¡± He closed his screen and reached towards Admin 6¡¯s screen. ¡°But you make things interesting, and I¡¯d like to know what you plan on doing next.¡± He touched the ¡°Remove¡± box. Admin 6 gasped as whatever the Director had ripped out was put back in. His throat throbbed, and he fell to his knees as he briefly felt like he couldn¡¯t breathe. ¡°Go on,¡± Admin 1 prompted, stepping back again. ¡°Say something illegal and amusing.¡± Admin 6 grinned, wiping tears from his face as he sat back. ¡°If your players win, have them refuse the prize.¡± Cycle 8 (5) Dear Diary, Tomorrow we¡¯ll be at Floor 38. Everyone in the group has agreed that kidnapping wolves is a great idea, and we are absolutely going to do it. I¡¯m kinda glad we aren¡¯t with Mika this cycle, cuz she¡¯s always against kidnapping animals. I mean, not against it to the point of stopping us, she¡¯s just mildly annoyed by us doing it. Y wondered if there¡¯ll ever be a point where we¡¯ve kidnapped too many things, and the Director stops us. I agree that¡¯s a thing that might happen, which means we need to kidnap as many things as possible while we can. I also suggested we throw lavender muffins into the creepy dark floor so we can figure out what¡¯s on it, and Steel said it¡¯s giant millipedes. Since they don¡¯t have stupid high teleport, they¡¯ve had to fight through it. I¡¯m perfectly happy living life having never seen a millipede three times bigger than I am, so the muffin idea is out. Oh yeah! When we got back from our old dungeon, our stats were all cut! Well, the Sams said ¡°we got nerfed¡±, which apparently means the same thing. So now my pain resistance, cooking and teleport are all at Lvl 50. Or, they were at the beginning of the cycle. I¡¯ve leveled up a few times by now. Being able to feel pain sucks. I kinda wish pain was just¡­ off. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. But oh well. I guess it wasn¡¯t fair to the other players that we were running around with Lvl 100 spells and their max spell was at 50. And we can choose a spell and a stat to level up each cycle, not just one or the other, so that¡¯s not too bad. Oh, Kimi asked Fire why she didn¡¯t try leveling up a flight spell. Fire doesn¡¯t walk, so if we¡¯re a race that doesn¡¯t have wings, Steel has to carry her. She said flight spells don¡¯t last long enough. Sure, they¡¯d give her a couple minutes of hovering, but what she needs is to be a race that has wings. Like fairy or half-dragon. In their old dungeon there was also a harpy race that had wings instead of arms, but Fire said she likes having human-ish hands. I¡¯ve never thought about it, but I also like having human-ish hands. Five is a good number of fingers. Speaking of people having five fingers, when we were on the Floor with all the geysers and sulfur, Y tried casually mentioning that sulfur is flammable again. Avi and I were quite concerned, but then Fire asked how hard it would be to set the whole Floor on fire. Steel joined in our concern at that point, and between the three of us we almost managed to get the whole group off the Floor without anything exploding. Yes, I just wrote ¡°almost¡±. Because we didn¡¯t. Fire and Kimi needed to know if they could make snowballs but out of damp sulfur. And then they decided to try making fireworks by throwing a ball of sulfur into the air and hitting it with a fireball. It was too much to ask for Y to not join them, and soon the three were happily exploding things as Avi, Steel and I slowly backed down the stairs. But hey, the Floor isn¡¯t a pile of rubble, so that¡¯s good. I think the Director changed something so they couldn¡¯t completely blow it up again. Anyways, we have wolves to kidnap tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 8 (6) Steel got to his feet, stretching after lunch. It had been a good lunch. He was going to miss Nikki¡¯s cooking when the cycle ended. He looked at Fire. ¡°Ready?¡± She nodded, sighing. ¡°I will be happy when next cycle comes,¡± she said, reaching for him. ¡°Why?¡± Kimi asked. ¡°What¡¯s next cycle?¡± ¡°Next cycle we will be half-dragons,¡± Fire said. ¡°I will have wings.¡± The four from Admin 6¡¯s group froze. Steel hesitated, looking around. ¡°How do you know?¡± Avi asked. ¡°It is a pattern,¡± Fire said, sensing the nervousness. ¡°Last cycle we were human. This cycle we are elves. Thus, next cycle we will be half-dragons.¡± ¡°Y,¡± Kimi called, taking her husband¡¯s hand. The man was quietly hyperventilating, his pupils so dilated both eyes looked black. He started laughing, softly and slowly. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Steel asked, worried. ¡°He can¡¯t be a half-dragon,¡± Nikki answered, backing away. ¡°Fine!¡± Y shouted, making everyone jump. ¡°It¡¯s fine! I¡¯m fine. There¡¯s nothing. It¡¯s. I¡¯m fine.¡± He laughed again, this time his voice turning hysterical. ¡°Y, stop,¡± Kimi ordered, moving to take his other hand as well. ¡°Stop what?¡± he asked. ¡°Did you know there¡¯s a phenomenon similar to the Northern Lights in Antarctica? It¡¯s called the Aurora Australis. I¡¯ve always wanted to see it. Shall we continue on?¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Steel decided that was the least subtle topic change he¡¯d ever heard. Kimi sighed. ¡°Y¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine,¡± he repeated. ¡°It won¡¯t come as a surprise now. I¡¯ll be fine.¡± Avi and Nikki shared a glance then walked away. Fire was watching Y, a worried look on her face. Steel knew her well enough to know she was blaming herself for his panic. He touched her shoulder then picked her up, following Avi to the stairs. Fire looked back. ¡°Should¡­¡± ¡°They¡¯ll follow when they¡¯re ready,¡± Steel told her. ***** Dear Diary, We did it! We kidnapped the dire wolves! The whole pack! I don¡¯t usually feel like a mad genius, but at the moment I kinda want to laugh like a supervillain. Steel and Fire were worried about the wolves reacting badly to them or something, but this pack of doggos is very well-trained. They know what to do when someone offers them meatballs. And that thing is to wag their tails and be friends. There was a slight problem with my ¡°ride wolves into battle¡± plan. Dogs don¡¯t do well with bridles. And we wouldn¡¯t muzzle the wolves. But! The kobolds got all the wolves used to pulling sleds, so they all know what harnesses are. So Avi made a harness, adjusted it for a rider, and duplicated it for everyone. And sure, this all took like two hours, but we have wolf mounts now!! And yeah, the wolves are all down to 1 HP, but who cares we have wolves with us!!!!! We¡¯re on Floor 40 now, and I don¡¯t even care that I can¡¯t use the kitchen. Because, I may have mentioned, we have wolves. There are a couple other groups here, and they¡¯re equal parts afraid and amazed at our beautiful pack of wonderful fluffy dire wolf friends. Avi is taking all the credit, since he¡¯s the official beast tamer here. I don¡¯t mind. Actually, I¡¯m glad. Avi isn¡¯t a fighter, so a lot of times he says he feels like a background character. That he¡¯s just kinda there. But this was mostly his doing. He gets to be the main character for today. Anyways, we gave all the wolves baths, and they¡¯re dry now so we need to brush them. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Intermission! Hey, Sadie here! So, a few chapters back I gave out a link to a "Director Feedback Form". Because no one can stop me from doing silly things. I just... Your responses have been... So, so beautiful. It is, in fact, too beautiful to keep to myself. I gotta share how epic some of y''all are. ***** First question was, what''s your opinion of the Director. There were some short responses, including "bad", "quite negative", "??", and "bad and stinky". I do love people who know how to be concise. Most were medium-length responses, such as:
She is an inhuman being that sees other''s humanity as a weakness. Oh and she also is a control freak
Pretty sure the words I would use to describe my feelings for the director would be censored due to their vulgarity and malice
She has all the charm and perspicacity of a dead slug. She suffers from delusions of adequacy. If she ever had a clever thought, it died alone and afraid.
Feels like an ancient fossil who can''t bend their minds around new ideas.
she reminds me of Umbridge from harry potter
She has lost sight of her true purpose. The power has obviously gone to her head.
They should change name to Director McDirectorface
Beautiful responses, I love them all. Aaand then there were some long, surprisingly well-thought-out responses that I need to highlight:
In perhaps the most polite terms that I can currently articulate, she is lost to her own pride. If there is anything left to redeem, it is buried deeply, and there is nothing to be gained by continuing to risk the wellbeing of the many people under her dubiously-granted authority in any bid to rediscover it.
"The Director" has demonstrated a worryingly cavalier attitude towards the long-term health of the product under her jurisdiction; changing project deadlines and parameters on a whim without consulting stakeholders. She has also been recorded engaging in blatant threats and retaliation against team members who voice concerns. Combined with her frequent narcissistic outburts and loudly stated delusions of grandeur, "The Director" has created a hostile work environment, one ill suited to team production and unlikely to produce a satisfactory or timely end product. It is my professional opinion that she is not suitable for her role, or indeed any role involving authority.
It seems to me she has been doing a difficult job nonstop for far longer than anyone could possibly consider reasonable, and, as often happens to people in that situation, she has become unwilling or unable to recognize when the situation has changed and some of the rules she''s tasked to enforce no longer make sense.
Seriously, the biggest validation as an author isn''t selling books, it''s seeing that people have honest-to-god thoughts and emotions about something I wrote. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Thank you. ***** Second question was an open-ended "you would like her to be...". I had to provide options, so mine were "promoted", "given a medal", and "other". Amazingly, shockingly, one person chose "promoted". I can only presume they were trolling. Three people chose "given a medal". However, one of them specified that was the only thing she was to be given. Ever. I assume the other two were in agreement with that. But the "other" responses... Just... Here:
Fired (in a kiln, perhaps?)
Given a ¡°you tried¡± sticker
reprimanded/replaced by her superiors/shareholders for the buggy mess of a system she produced.
shoved in a barrel with a bunch of broken glass and rolled down a hill!
Given one last lesson on playing with Dracoraptors
Flogged
Beautiful. Creative. Mildly concerning. I love them all. There were also a couple common themes. A lot of people said to make her an NPC for a while. Other people said she should be given the worst bad luck/karma that has ever been had, and placed on a world as an absolute nobody. And several people suggested turning her into a goldfish. All great suggestions. ***** My last section is an open "anything more to say" section, so I want to highlight a couple people here. There''s two people who suggested in great detail giving her a life of working a customer service job. One specified that customer satisfaction was 100% necessary in EVERY case, even for karens and complete morons. The other wrote a few good paragraphs on learning/showing empathy. One person had a well-thought-out plan for a trial replacement, which then would lead to the Director being booted forever. You. I like you. Sadly, the plot is going in a different direction, but you''re not too far off course. The person you nominated is correct. Also, homemade grenades are in your future, congrats! Oh, to the person who said there''s a great lack of dumplings/pierogi/empanadas in my story, I shall keep that in mind. Thank you. One person replied here with "The Director is an absolute quaternion", and to the other questions with "a quaternion". I''m not quite sure what that means, but I like someone who knows what they''re about. One person wrote "She needs therapy, to get over herself, and a good stew to humble herself and also she needs to personally give me twenty dollars". I wholeheartedly agree. I''ll see what can be done. And to the person who tried to get the full Bee Movie script into there: I''m glad to see that meme is still alive. ***** So yeah! I''d just like to thank everyone who took the time to respond, it''s given me hours of joy. So much so I had to share some of it. Thanks for reading!!! ~Sadie~ Cycle 8 (7) Dear Diary, Wolves are the best pets ever. Riding around on a wolf is totally epic. It''s like giving a dog an hour-long hug as it runs around and plays. Oh, Lex and Tim were very not sure if they liked the dire wolves at first. We were debating sending them home, but today they decided it was fine. And the wolves don¡¯t have any issue with the strange feathered creatures that want to curl up on their backs. Everyone is friends now, yay! I think everyone in the whole universe should always be friends. Unless those people are slimes. I¡¯m sorry, but I refuse to befriend a slime. I¡¯d even befriend the Director, if she wanted to be my friend. I could see us being pen pals or something. Maybe. As long as she didn¡¯t spread lies and try to manipulate people. Like Lily. Oh yeah, Lily¡­ I haven¡¯t heard from her all cycle. What she said was wrong and mean, but if she apologized I¡¯d forgive her. I don¡¯t want to hold a grudge if someone is sorry for the mean things they say. Of course, if she isn¡¯t sorry and doesn¡¯t ever apologize, then she can go hug a slime. I hope she does apologize, tho, especially if we have to be in the same group one of these cycles. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I¡¯ll have to ask Y what he said to her. She was avoiding him like the plague, so I know they talked. Anyways, we¡¯ll probably be at the kobolds'' floor day after tomorrow. Kimi kinda wants to leave the wolves there. I wouldn¡¯t mind doing that. I mean, I¡¯d be sad, but I get why it¡¯d be a good idea. The wolves pretty much lived with them for cycle after cycle. I¡¯m sure it would make the kobolds happy to have the wolves back. But I¡¯d be sad to leave the wolves behind. Fire and Steel would be sad, too. And Avi. But at least I know it would make more people happy if we left them than if we kept them. Even if the kobolds will be fighting, and won¡¯t have time to play with the wolves. Oh! Fire finally talked about why she doesn¡¯t like walking! Well, before she just said it felt wrong. But apparently it feels wrong because she used to have some kind of thing that made her bones keep popping out of place. She learned to walk in a weird way to keep her bones from dislocating. Here she doesn¡¯t have that, but she says the way she walks is wrong for normal ankles. Rather than train herself to walk correctly, she just became a fairy with an automatic flying instinct, and it was fine. Until they came here. I guess stuff like that would be hard to forget. I don¡¯t really remember a lot any more. Most of my childhood is just a blur. I should have written about it more. I should have at least written down what color eyes my parents had. And their names. ¡­I can¡¯t remember what my last name was. That¡¯s new. And in some memories I remember myself as a neko. On Earth. I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s wrong. Well, I¡¯m sad now. I¡¯m gonna go hug a wolf then go to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 8 (8) Dear Diary, So, between the floor with the glyptodon and the lavender field there¡¯s a maze with walls that are covered in blood. And elves live there. Steel is friends with the elves. I didn¡¯t know any real players were friends with any NPCs. But yeah, they saw him and came out to say hi! We all introduced ourselves, and I made them pizza. They had an oven to bake bread in, but they didn¡¯t have any cheese. This is absolutely terrible. I gave them a whole bunch of cheese. All kinds, too. And in payment for the cheese, they showed us a series of secret portals from the entrance to the exit. The portal is supposed to be NPC-only, but¡­ meh. Anyways, they asked why we¡¯d taken a glyptodon through the maze. Apparently they¡¯ve been super curious about that. They also asked about the wolves, but the wolves are all clearly enjoying themselves. They kept licking the walls, which was just a liiitle bit gross. So we told the elves about how our Admin trades information for entertainment. That interested them. They asked what kind of entertainment, and if we thought their Admin would do the same. We didn¡¯t. But we told them exciting entertainment. Things based on finding loopholes in rules. Before we left they said they were going to try finding loopholes in rules. I kinda feel like we should have told them not to. That maaaaybe doing things bad or wrong would get them in trouble. But oh well. We don¡¯t have any way of contacting them, so it¡¯s too late now. I mean, no way of contacting them unless I wanted to write our Admin asking him to ask Admin 4 for the elves¡¯ numbers, which I don¡¯t. It would take way too much explaining. I am in favor of not explaining things. At least, not when I might get in trouble for it. Speaking of getting in trouble for explaining things! Fire told Steel about the energy drinks. Kimi said we are very much banned from making them. Steel asked why, so Avi described it. He¡­ made it sound pretty disgusting. I mean, fish and espresso won¡¯t ever be a good combo, and I will admit it ended up a not-great color. But hey, it gives people energy, soooo¡­ Oh, Fire still refers to Kimi and I as sisters. Steel has started doing it, too. Now that I¡¯m used to it I kinda like it. There aren¡¯t a whole lot of families here. Like, in our old dungeon the Sams were the only set of siblings I knew of. There was a pair of cousins in the kobolds'' group, but that¡¯s about it. Even people who knew they¡¯d had siblings before¡­ never met up with them. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. So yeah, having a family connection is nice. Even if it¡¯s totally made up. I wonder if anyone else is making new family connections. Probably. Strong connections would form in smaller groups, and they might decide to be family. And in bigger groups people usually find one or two people they¡¯re super close to. I¡¯m glad to have found a group I can call family. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . The director looked over Admin 6¡¯s ¡°players¡±. She wanted to find the ringleader. Among the ten people there seemed to be three groups. One group was really a pair that switched between the two other groups when necessary. The Director checked to see if they were listed as solo players, and was surprised to see they weren¡¯t. Odd, but irrelevant. She decided to call the other two groups the Light group and Dark group. Light group consisted of Mika, white, Aya, yellow, Samuel, orange, and Samurai, pink. Among them, Mika was on the outside the most. She seemed to be developing a relationship with one of Admin 2¡¯s players. Mika held little power. Samuel and Samurai were siblings. They were very close, but neither held more importance in the relationship. When orders had to be given they looked to¡­ Aya was quiet, but when she spoke everyone seemed to listen. None of her plans had ever gone wrong as far as the Director could tell. Everyone respected Aya as a leader. The Director wrote down that Aya was the leader of the Light group. But did she have any control over the Dark group? The Dark group consisted of two couples. Y, black, Kimi, red, Avi, silver, and Nikki, green. Y was the oldest by far. On paper it would seem he was the smartest. But he had¡­ issues. Kimi took care of him, but she also deferred to him when he said to do or not do something. They were equals. Avi had apparently done something fantastic to earn silver magic. What that something was, the Director had no idea. He was small, weak, pathetic, and the only thing of note he¡¯d done in her dungeon was tame a hellhound. He was absolutely not in charge. Nikki, however¡­ Admin 6 had written that she needed her full food inventory to feed the group and make them happy. She wasn¡¯t just feeding her group, though, she was feeding half the dungeon. Pizzas, onions, sushi, cake, she made food and gave it to mobs simply for the joy of feeding people. She provided meatballs and some sort of ranch-filled pastry for other players to give to wolves, dinosaurs and slimes. When Y had panicked the first time, Nikki had been the one to put him to sleep. The first cycle, Nikki had been the one to get the button on Floor 60. And she made some sort of pudding out of Admin 5¡¯s ridiculous chocolate that was taking the dungeon by storm. Not to mention she helped convince players from Admin 4¡¯s group to take monsters from their floors. Nikki wasn¡¯t actively in control, but with minimal effort she could be. The Director spent some time reviewing Aya and Nikki¡¯s actions. They both held power, but in different ways. It was difficult, given the differences in personalities, but finally she made her decision. The person in charge of Admin 6¡¯s players was the chef. Nikki was the Director¡¯s principal enemy. Cycle 8 (9) Dear Diary, As we get closer to Floor 60 Y is getting twitchier and twitchier. Fire said that next cycle we¡¯re going to be half-dragons again, and it freaked Y out. I don¡¯t know if she¡¯s right or not, but it is a possibility. Kimi is kinda having a hard time. It¡¯s hard watching someone you love feel stressed and scared. Anyways, when we got to Floor 50 a bunch of people were around. I guess without super OP stats we¡¯re just average. I haven¡¯t been average in a while. It¡¯s weird. Tomorrow we should be in the new cycle. I wonder what the party setup will be like. I hope it isn¡¯t solo runs again. I hate solo runs. I wonder if we¡¯ll ever have to make parties out of one person from each group. That could be fun! Then I¡¯d learn which Admins made which Floors! Oh, Linda and Floofles are back on their Floor. They didn¡¯t survive the spiderweb maze. Dire wolves aren¡¯t all that good at tightrope walking, who would have known. Well, I¡¯m not all that great at it either, but at least if I fall off I have a chance at grabbing a strand as I flail. The poor doggos just had to resign themselves to death. We debated sending the other four back when that happened, but Fire said no. She said she was too in love with Bear to send him back. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Which I get. I didn¡¯t want to send Siri home, either. When we were on Floor 50 I made cupcakes! I made strawberry cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes, and made peach frosting for both types. I like the way it turned out. I¡¯ve been giving them away, but I might still have some in my inventory when the cycle ends. If I do, I really super hope they don¡¯t go poof. Having cupcakes vanish into the aether would be too much. I¡¯ll have to write the Director and ask her pretty please to let us keep things from one cycle to the next. I know it¡¯ll cause problems for her, but¡­ that¡¯s her problem. I mean, some non-magical things stay in the inventory. Like diaries and clothes. But anything that at one point had been magical gets taken away. And anything that you have more than a dozen of gets poofed away. The ovens here use magic to heat up, so that technically makes everything I bake semi-magical. At best I can expect to keep twelve cupcakes, but I wouldn''t be surprised if they all vanish. OH! We got to Floor 50 at dusk, and while we were eating dinner Staab and Lily¡¯s group came in. Apparently Lily told Staab some fake reason for why she was avoiding Y. Staab came over to ask if Y had threatened her, and Y said if ordering someone to stop lying was a threat, then yes. Kimi added she¡¯d threatened to set Lily on fire, but that¡¯s all. Apparently whatever Lily said Y did was waaaay worse. Like, lying about it crosses a line worse. Staab is not happy with Lily right now. I wish I could say I¡¯m sorry for her, but I¡¯m not. It¡¯s just the consequences of her actions. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 9 (Director) As the cycle reset, the Director pulled Nikki into her office. The green-haired chef blinked, looking around, then smiled. ¡°Oh, you¡¯re the Director!¡± ¡°I am,¡± the Director said. She motioned to the chair across from her. ¡°Please, have a seat.¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± Nikki bounced into the chair. ¡°Hey, I need to ask, can we keep stuff we make in our inventories when the cycles reset? That would be super epic.¡± Somehow the phrase super epic grated on the Director¡¯s soul. She blinked, keeping her face neutral. ¡°I mean, not magic stuff or super expensive stuff,¡± Nikki continued. ¡°Just the basic stuff. Like these!¡± She pulled two cupcakes out of her inventory and set them on the Director¡¯s mahogany desk. ¡°I made them in an oven, and I didn¡¯t have time to give them all away before the reset, so they¡¯ll be gone when I get back to Floor 1. That¡¯s just a waste. And there are other things, too, like crafts and jewelry that has sentimental value. Losing everything is just kinda sad, y¡¯no?¡± The Director was fascinated. This child had absolutely no sense of danger. She watched her for a few seconds, debating. Nikki apparently took the silence as a sign to keep talking. ¡°In our old dungeon we got to keep one weapon and one defense item, no matter if it was magic or not. That was really useful. And then the Admin gave us a special shared inventory that let us keep one extra magic item. If you wanted to do that it would be totally awesome.¡± She beamed. The Director realized she¡¯d forgotten what she¡¯d brought this girl in here for. ¡°Actually, I guess the cycle is resetting, so here,¡± Nikki said, pulling more cupcakes out of her inventory. ¡°I¡¯ve got a couple other things, too, if you¡¯re hungry. Do you like pizza?¡± She pulled a pizza out and set it on the desk as well. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°I¡¯ve never had pizza,¡± the Director said slowly. ¡°What, seriously?! Ok, I need to make you like a dozen types of pizzas. What else haven¡¯t you had? Sushi? You know what wasabi is, right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care for sushi.¡± ¡°Oh, ok.¡± Nikki squinted at her. ¡°You like Italian food, don¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I-¡± The chef pulled two half-eaten lasagnas out of her inventory and set them on the rapidly filling desk. ¡°Ok, this one is beef, and this one is cheese. Which technically makes it vegetarian, but some people don¡¯t like it when I label things as vegetarian.¡± The Director gave up. She summoned Admin 6 to the office. He appeared with an iced coffee in his hand. He blinked, took in the situation, and grinned. Nikki saw him and flinched ever so slightly back, her eyes momentarily widening. And then she smiled again and picked up a cupcake. ¡°Hi! Cupcake? It¡¯s vanilla with peach frosting.¡± Admin 6 bowed, accepting the offered dessert. He locked eyes with the Director, taking a bite. He was going to be no help. The Director sent him away with a wave. ¡°Do you know why I brought you here?¡± she asked calmly. ¡°Uhh¡­¡± Nikki¡¯s eyes traveled around the room. ¡°No. Sorry.¡± ¡°I wanted to-¡± Admin 5 appeared, a wild look in her eyes. ¡°You have cupcakes?¡± Nikki once again lifted a cupcake from the table. ¡°Want one? It¡¯s strawberry with peach frosting!¡± Admin 5 made an undignified squeak as she lunged for the dessert. She bit in like a ravenous wolf, devouring it within seconds. Nikki, looking absolutely thrilled with this reaction, silently offered her another one. The Director watched this display with mixed emotions. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say they were vanilla?¡± ¡°Yeah, I have two flavors,¡± Nikki answered. ¡°After all, variety is the spice of life.¡± She handed Admin 5 a third cupcake. The Director waved her subordinate away, clearing her throat. ¡°As I was saying-¡± Admins 2 and 4 appeared. ¡°Cupcakes?¡± 4 asked. Admin 2 focused on something else. ¡°Pizza?¡± Admin 1 popped in. ¡°Cupcakes?¡± The Director sighed, sending Nikki back to the dungeon. Cycle 9 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! And yeah, we¡¯re half-dragons. Y freaked out a little bit, but not as much as last time. No one had to knock him out before the Admin changed him back to neko. This cycle we¡¯re in pairs, made out of people in our group, but we aren''t allowed to be with the same people we were with last time we made pairs. So Avi and I are separated, which is sad. But the sadder thing is, Kimi can¡¯t stay with Y. She¡¯s with me. Avi and Mika are a pair; they plan on writing music all cycle. Aya is with Lily, and Staab is with Samurai. Samuel volunteered to stay behind with Y, which was nice of him. They don¡¯t know each other super well, but I''m sure they¡¯ll be good friends by next cycle. Oh, I met the Director! She said she¡¯s never had pizza before! I have to make pizzas to give her. And other things. I wonder if she¡¯s ever had chicken nuggets¡­ If she¡¯s never had pizza then there must be a whole bunch of amazing foods she¡¯s never tried! I¡¯ll have to make a list of foods to send her. Avi met her, and he said she was mean. But, well, Avi is kinda¡­ He defaults to thinking people are mad at him. Which annoys some people. So she probably was mean to him. Whereas I just gave her food, and she wasn¡¯t mean to me at all. Now that I think about it, that¡¯s all I did. I asked if we could have stuff stay in our inventories through cycle resets, then I gave her cupcakes, then we talked about food, and then she sent me to Floor 1. She never told me why she wanted to talk to me. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I should probably ask about that. Or I could just ask if she wants any chicken nuggets, and it might remind her that she never asked me about whatever she called me in for. I wonder if I could get her to change the food magic. It¡¯s kinda meh at the moment. Not fun to play with at all. I bet she¡¯s busy and wouldn¡¯t want to, but I could ask if Nat can change things around. Nat would love that. She¡¯d do a great job at assigning magic to individual ingredients to make epic combos that end up as a sandwich or something. I¡¯d love to do that, but I¡¯m kinda too busy being a player. Trying to get through the floors. Making friends with people, making food for people. Oh, I actually burned something today! That hasn¡¯t happened in like forever. My cooking skill is now at 57, which means there¡¯s a chance I might make something that tastes bad someday. I mean, I won¡¯t. But there¡¯s a chance. I should try making an energy drink and seeing how it comes out¡­ So, the power scaling for abilities (like cooking) is weird. 1 - 10 and you just totally suck. 11 - 25 and you¡¯re not bad but not all that great. 26 - 50 and you still mess up a lot but you know what you¡¯re doing. And above fifty you¡¯re basically an expert. Over 90 and you¡¯re perfect. I think ¡°expert¡± is at 50 cuz in a dungeon that resets all your levels to zero every few weeks, it¡¯s hard to get past that. Anything higher really only exists for bragging rights. Spells and skills scale differently. With them there is a distinct difference every ten points. I wonder if there¡¯s a list somewhere with all the skills and spells and abilities it¡¯s possible to get. That would come in super handy. Another thing to ask the Director when I finally get around to messaging her¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 9 (2) The Director watched her message box, willing it to impart more information. It remained the same.
From: Nikki
To: The Director
Subject: Pizza
Hi!! You said you¡¯ve never had pizza before, so I made four pizzas for you. They¡¯re on the kitchen counter in Floor 10¡¯s diner. You can get them, right? The one closest to the door is pepperoni, that¡¯s like basic default pizza. Next to it is an ¡°everything¡± pizza, which doesn¡¯t have literally everything on it, but it has a lot of things that are common for people to put on pizza on it. You¡¯re not allergic to anything, right? Anyways next to that is Hawaiian pizza, which there¡¯s some controversy about, but everyone should try it just so they can have informed opinions. And lastly is a white sauce pizza with chicken, which is closer to what pizzas were originally, in Italy, back before pepperoni was invented and they got tomatoes. So yeah! Enjoy! Nikki
The Director couldn''t understand this message. It was so¡­ simple. She scanned the words for any hidden meaning, but nothing appeared. This was clearly a bribe, but no future favor was hinted at. She wasn''t a woman who allowed herself debts. She never owed anyone anything, ever. Deciding to face this challenge head-on, she hit Reply.
From: The Director
To: Nikki
Subject: Re: Pizza
Thank you for the offer. Is there anything you would like in return?
She waited, sipping tea. After a few minutes a reply came. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Just your opinion on how you like them :) By the way, what did you want to ask me when you pulled me into your office? Oh! Would it be ok if Nat, a kobold on Floor 54, changed the food magic? It¡¯s kinda boring and I know we could do sooo much more if someone who knew how to cook and bake and stuff was able to change it! Nikki
The Director smiled a bitter smile. There it was. Nothing came free. This girl wanted information and a favor for mobs. Well. The Director hadn¡¯t played this game for centuries just to be tricked by a child. She put her fingers to the keyboard.
I shall take it under consideration.
. . . ***** Dear Diary, Avi said he¡¯s writing a song for me, and he¡¯ll play it when we get together at the start of next cycle. I can¡¯t wait to hear it. Not that I¡¯m biased or anything, but I bet it¡¯ll be the best song in the history of songs. Ok so I might be super biased. Sue me. Kimi is kinda quieter than usual. She¡¯s worried about Y. Not to the point of going back or anything, but she¡¯s really upset with the Director for making her leave him. I''m just glad this cycle the parties all have two people, and it isn''t a cycle where the parties have to be ten people. Cuz then we¡¯d all have to stay behind, and some might get upset. I wonder how Fire is doing. Half-dragons have wings, so it shouldn''t be too bad, but being away from Steel probably isn''t great for her. I''ll have to message her and ask how things are going. We¡¯re on Floor 26, it¡¯s been a few days. Mika won¡¯t allow Avi to kidnap any velociraptors, so I get them instead! Kimi and I debated waiting until we get to the wolves to kidnap something, but nah. That¡¯s too far off. We need floofs! Other than floof kidnapping, nothing new has really happened. We¡¯re getting pretty used to how things work. We¡¯re getting to know the people. I kinda hope nothing changes, cuz lately whenever things change it¡¯s always bad. But then, being bored is also bad. Just less bad, kinda. I''d rather be bored than upset. Altho sometimes changes are good, like if we could get flour to be magic all by itself. That would be an epic change. Anyways, I need to feed Lex and Tim before going to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 9 (3) Dear Diary, I¡¯ve been making food for the Director when we get to catgirl floors. Because everyone needs to try fried cheese sticks at least once in their life. I don¡¯t know if the Director agrees, but the catgirls say the food is vanishing, so at least she¡¯s taking it. Obviously I would never force anyone to eat chicken nuggets or Gin¡¯s version of mac and cheese, but I want them to be available for her. Tasty food should be something everyone has access to! The Director hasn¡¯t said anything about it, tho. She hasn¡¯t said she likes or dislikes anything. Which probably means she doesn¡¯t hate it. People who hate things usually let other people know. I should make her an energy drink, those are pretty hateable. I should make linguine. That¡¯s pretty basic. And I¡¯m sure she¡¯s had it before, so she can see I¡¯m capable of making things she¡¯s familiar with! Pies! I should make pies! I haven¡¯t really made any desserts, other than cupcakes. Kimi has been living off cupcakes the last few days. ¡­I think the stomach ache she gets from all the sugar makes her feel better emotionally. In some way. I don¡¯t know, it¡¯ll be good when we finish the Cycle and she gets back to Y. Oh, Avi and Mika are ahead of us by like five Floors. I''ve lost count of how many times we''ve all pushed the button. I guess we just need to try our best to get there first? At some point there should be an announcement about how many button pushes we all have, so I''ll just wait till then to find out. I don''t know where anyone else is specifically. We don''t really keep track of each other. Which feels sad, in a way. But I guess that¡¯s just how life is sometimes. We¡¯re all adults with our own relationships, and we have priorities when it comes to who we talk with. I should ask the Sams if they get to talk to Samantha, like a phone call. I know they can and do message, but being able to hear someone¡¯s voice is better than just reading words on a screen. It would be good if they can call, but I wouldn''t be surprised if they can''t. I get the feeling dungeons are their own dimension or something, and communicating between them directly is impossible. But that''s just a feeling. So I should ask! Goodnight, Dungeon! Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
. . .
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: (empty)
I was told you knew the group of players who won the first cycle. A group that consists of four men and six women, with no color repeats? One happened to be carrying a full cake in her inventory?
From: Gigi
To: Athena
Subject: Re:
Sounds right. I know someone who likely always has a cake in her inventory, at least.
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: Re: Re:
What can you tell me about them?
From: Gigi
To: Athena
Subject: Re: Re: Re:
Probably a lot. What do you want to know?
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Were they catgirls?
From: Gigi
To: Athena
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yeahhh¡­ I guess players can¡¯t tell, but one catgirl can always spot another, right?
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Absolutely. How did they change? And what do you know about the yellow and purple girls?
Cycle 9 (4) Dear Diary, Kimi and I spent today trying to figure out how the memory fade thing works. Cuz like, I don''t really remember how I died. Neither does Kimi. But Y sure as heck does. All of my relationship memories are gone. As far as I know, Avi was the first person I ever dated. But Kimi remembers having a fianc¨¦ who controlled everything she did. She doesn''t remember his name or what he looked like, just that she couldn''t do anything without asking him first and she was trapped. Things like recipes and math and writing and chemical formulas haven''t faded at all. I don''t remember where I learned all the recipes I use, but they¡¯re there. Kimi says those might be stored in different parts of the brain from regular memories, so they might never fade, or they might fade last. We think the memories we still have are of things that seriously impacted our lives for a long time. Like, we both know we were from California. The California flag has a bear on it. We saw it and the name a million times growing up. It¡¯s stuck with us. But neither of us remember what our jobs were. We also remember things we¡¯ve told people here. Like, I remember telling Avi my old name was Rachel. I can''t remember ever using that name, or anyone calling me Rachel, but I remember the conversation when Avi and I shared our old names. And Kimi said she remembers the conversation where Y told her a lot of things about him, so that¡¯s probably why when Fire asked about his family he remembered. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It kinda makes me wish I¡¯d talked about my family more. But we all had those ¡°don''t talk about it¡± feelings, so we couldn''t. Not really. Oh, the reason the subject came up was cuz Kimi wondered if the Admin could erase Y¡¯s memories of how he died and the first whole cycle. We kinda decided it wouldn¡¯t really help, because he would still have the memories of freaking out about being a half-dragon, and he might remember the nightmares. Plus I¡¯m worried that if we ask the Admin to erase one part of Y¡¯s memory, he¡¯ll go ahead and erase everything. We don''t want that. So yeah, Kimi just needs to talk to the Admin about things. See if this whole situation can be made better. Anyways, we left Lex and Tim with the gingerbread people. Everyone was happy, even if it means I don''t have anything to snuggle for the next day or two. That¡¯s ok. If I desperately need to snuggle something, I''m sure Kimi wouldn''t mind. I''m kinda really enjoying spending time alone with¡­ with my sister. It¡¯s good to spend time with family. If there are seven more cycles where we have to be in parties of two, it might be good to spend a cycle with everyone. Just to get to know them better. ¡­Yes, even Lily. I don''t particularly want to get to know her better, but I''m sure something good would come of it. Like, I''d get to see her die a bunch of times! That would be fun. Sorry, that was mean. I''ll stop now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 9 (5) Dear Diary, The Director sent me a really weird letter today. She said she¡¯ll allow the catgirls to submit ideas for changing how the food magic works, but that¡¯s all. And no promises that the ideas will be implemented. Which is good, but the way she wrote it was just¡­ odd. It kinda felt like I was getting a letter from a lawyer on behalf of a big corporation. But oh well! The food magic might improve soon! That would be great. Mika also wrote me. About Avi. She says she hadn''t noticed before, but he¡¯s not really a pacifist any more. He¡¯s ok with being an active participant in fights. Mika teamed up with him because they¡¯re friends, but also cuz she knows she can get through the dungeon fighting solo. If he stayed out of all fights, it wouldn''t have been an issue with her like it would have been for others. But no, he¡¯s carrying his own weight just fine apparently. Which¡­ isn''t a problem. The problem is, it means Avi¡¯s changed. I hope he changed on his own. And he didn''t change because the Admin or someone¡­ changed his soul. That thought is scary enough that I''ll never bring it up with him. I''ll just presume he changed himself cuz he wanted to. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I don''t know. Avi is¡­ Well, he¡¯s younger than me by two years. As Via he was distinctly smaller than me physically, and now he¡¯s only barely taller than me. He¡¯s still skinnier than me, tho. And he¡¯s always avoided conflicts of any kind. I¡¯ve always kinda felt like I had to protect him. I''m older and louder and bigger, and I love him to death and can''t let anything hurt him ever. But he doesn''t need my protection. He can take care of himself. I hadn''t really realized that until I read Mika¡¯s letter. And Mika was happy about how strong and confident he is now. I''m happy too, I am, but I need to show that. Anyways. We¡¯re on Floor 40 tonight. I still can''t cook here. I need to cook like a five-course meal on Floor 30, then bring it down here to show the catgirl that I can cook. That I''m not just trying to destroy her kitchen or something. Lyra. The catgirl¡¯s name is Lyra. I''ve got to do better about remembering and using names. I''ve got a lot of them in my list at the back of the book. There¡¯s still a lot of floors I haven''t covered, but I¡¯m over half done. I''ve decided to not record what everyone¡¯s favorite foods are. It would be useful information, but there are a lot of people in this dungeon. I¡¯d need a whole new notebook for that. Besides, I can usually remember when someone asks for something specific. If they don''t ask, then I just make whatever I want and they usually enjoy it. It¡¯s not really all that complicated. Anyways, it¡¯s late and I should sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 9 (6) Dear Diary, Kimi thinks that next cycle we¡¯ll be stuck on Floor 1 again, fighting something there. I''m not thrilled about PVP fighting, but a break from running through the dungeon would be nice. We need more vacation cycles. I bet it''s nice for the NPCs, too. Knowing they have a whole cycle where they don''t have to fight or kill. Altho they might not know it. I hope the Director tells people when there¡¯s a cycle where we don''t leave Floor 1. Oh! I forgot to say we kidnapped two of the dire wolves! We¡¯re going through the dungeon with Siri and Floofles. Fire asked permission to kidnap Bear and Wolfie McWolfpants, and we agreed in that case it would be good for Steel to kidnap Balto and Linda. That way they¡¯re all on adventures, and the pack at least partially gets to know Fire and Steel better. So yeah! We¡¯ve got giant doggos with us. Avi is super jealous. Mika is happy he hasn''t tried forcibly making pets out of anything new. Next cycle, or whenever we¡¯re together next, Avi and I want to kidnap a cat or two off the lavender floor. Just to see how well it works. I don''t have very high hopes, but who knows! Maybe some cat will follow us and not die. Now that we don''t have Level 100 skills any more we¡¯re going at the pace of the other players, and a little slower. We¡¯ll have to actually work hard if we want to win all the cycles. I don''t think it''ll be too much of a problem, but it will be something we have to keep an eye on. A part of me wants to do a solo run again, cuz I totally won that one, but that would leave Avi behind. Besides, my teleport has been cut in half, so I''d be going slower. It wouldn''t be such an easy win. Kimi wants another cycle where we¡¯re in a party of ten again. I agree that would be fun. I hope it happens at least once before we leave. Hey, next cycle is Cycle 10. There will only be 30 cycles. So we¡¯re a third done! It doesn''t feel like we¡¯ve been here ten whole cycles. Well, ok, we weren''t here for a cycle, but still. I think part of it is that our old dungeon has 100 Floors, while this one only has 60. That¡¯s a big difference. I wonder what it would be like in a dungeon with 200 Floors. It would take forever to get through. With that I really would need to fill a notebook with everyone¡¯s favorite foods, cuz my memory doesn''t last that long. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. And I think a dungeon with only 40 or 50 Floors would be too short. It¡¯d get repetitive and boring super fast. I need to double-check that I have enough meatballs in my inventory for the wolves¡¯ breakfast. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: (empty)
Well? It¡¯s been a day. What do you think?
From: Gigi
To: Athena
Subject: Re:
Selectively. Nikki and Aya were always nice to me. I won''t do anything against any party they¡¯re in.
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: Re: Re:
Favoritism might target them.
From: Gigi
To: Athena
Subject: Re: Re: Re:
I favor them because they¡¯re good people. That might give everyone else a clue.
From: Athena
To: Gigi
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Most excellent point. Do it.
Cycle 9 (7) Dear Diary, We¡¯re on Floor 50, so the cycle is at most two days from being over. It kinda feels like every player in the dungeon is here. People are all over the place. A part of me wanted to offer to help in the diner here, but I know I shouldn''t. I mean, it would be nice, but it would also be slightly weird. Players shouldn''t take time out of their dungeon crawling to help cook at a restaurant. I didn''t even ask to use the kitchen. I would have been in the way. Which means Siri and Floofles will have to eat regular hamburger patties. That''s ok. I was able to boil some fish in my room and give them that, so their diets aren''t too one-note. I wonder what Fire and Steel are feeding their wolves¡­ I''ll ask! ¡­Ok, I shouldn''t have asked. Steel said he¡¯s been giving Balto and Linda beef jerky, and Fire said she¡¯s been giving Bear and Wolfie McWolfpants fresh meat. Beef jerky isn''t good for dogs to eat on a regular basis, so now I''m worried about their health. And I really don''t want to know where the fresh meat comes from. It can''t be monsters, cuz when monsters die their bodies poof away. Unless she¡¯s keeping the monsters alive while the wolves eat, which is something I don''t want to think about. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Maybe I should ask Steel to ask. And tell him to give the wolves non-salted meat. Oh! Avi says the song he¡¯s been writing for me is done! He¡¯ll play it for me at the start of next cycle. I can''t wait. I kinda wish there was something I could make for him, but I''m not artistic. Like, at all. I make food, but I make him special food like twice a week. To the point it¡¯s not really all that special any more. Maybe I could secretly befriend something, and give him a new pet. But that usually takes time, and it¡¯s not something I can really do sneakily. Oh well. I''ll figure something out. In other news, Lily tried to talk to Kimi tonight. We¡¯re all here, and they bumped into each other in the shop. Kimi just has no patience for anything Lily says any more. I couldn''t hear what they said, but Lily was super shocked and then horrified and then I think she wanted to cry. I''d feel bad, but given the rumors she tried to start were about me, I kinda don''t care. I mean, I''m not glad Kimi almost made Lily cry. But I won''t say she shouldn''t have done it. I asked Kimi what they talked about, and Kimi just said I shouldn''t worry about it. A part of me is like ¡°ok, not worrying!¡±, but another part kinda thinks it might be important. Maybe I''ll ask later, on a cycle when Kimi isn''t worried about Y. Cuz yeah, Kimi is still worried about Y. I think she was doing a little better, but now that we¡¯re close to the end she¡¯s worried again. But we¡¯ll all be together again soon, and no one will have to worry about anyone else. Yay for not needing to worry! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 10 (1) Welcome to Cycle 10! This cycle, there are 8 dragons and 100 wyverns on Floor 1. The job of all players is to kill them by any means necessary. The group with the most combined kills when the last creature dies will be counted as the winners. If you kill other players, their deaths will count toward your total kill count. I wish you luck. Director ***** Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re neko again!!! I love being a neko. It makes me feel most like me. Sure, the other races are fun, but I''m a catgirl at heart. This cycle, as Kimi predicted, we¡¯re stuck on Floor 1. We have to kill all the dragons and wyverns in the dungeon, who are also here. Which is sad. But! Two of those dragons are Jenny and Lewis, so they get to hang out some! They met in the old dungeon, on the secret floor, and they get along really well. They haven''t really been able to communicate here, so it¡¯s good they have a couple days to catch up. Even if, y¡¯no, everyone is trying to kill them. Oh, I wrote the Director and asked if everyone knows we aren''t leaving the Floor this cycle. Just in case. I hope so. Kimi got to spend time with Y, so she¡¯s all happy and relaxed now. Well, as relaxed as someone with the brain speed of a hummingbird can ever be. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. And Avi played me his song. It is the best, most romantic song in the history of songs. I cried. I love him so much. A part of me wishes music recorders were a thing here, so I could record the song and listen to it all day long. But doing that might make the Director copy the song so everyone can hear it, and I don''t want that. This is my song. Mine. Written by my husband. For me. And no one else. I''ve never had a song that¡¯s all mine before, and it¡¯s just¡­ the best. I wish I could bottle this happiness and take it out whenever I need it. But I can¡¯t, so I''ll just enjoy it now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . The Director watched her screen thoughtfully.
From: Nikki
To: The Director
Subject: Telling People Stuff
Hey! I wondered if you tell everyone when we (players) are stuck on Floor 1 all cycle? Cuz if not, you should! Letting people know they have a break for a cycle would be good. That way they aren''t waiting and preparing for something that won''t happen. Open communication is important for a dungeon to run well. If you don''t want to, I can! Nikki
What was the silly girl planning? She wanted a way of communicating with all mobs and NPCs in the dungeon, obviously. The Director admitted to herself it was masterfully put. Nikki offered to help her, should she not wish to bother herself with sending out a notice. A notice which, yes, it would be polite to give. The fact that this would allow Nikki access to the notification program wasn¡¯t even hinted at. As amusing as it would be to see what the girl would do with it, the Director wasn''t nearly stupid enough to give a player access to something so powerful. So she wrote a notice to the mobs and NPCs, then told Nikki her wonderful idea had been put into effect. She smiled, wondering what ploy the child would try next. Cycle 10 (2) Dear Diary, One of the dragons, Pudroat, is gone. And about half the wyverns have been taken out. The groups seem to be trying to figure out sneaky ways of killing wyverns. Sneaky because PVP is allowed, and no one wants to get killed by another player. Our plan is to go out tonight with all our AOE spells active and kill as many wyverns as possible. I made cakes for Jenny and Lewis, and we¡¯ll use those to bargain with them to keep us safe. I wonder if any other players will try to bargain with them. If it works well for us they might. Bargaining is so much nicer than fighting. Since going outside was kinda a bad idea today and yesterday, we¡¯ve been racing slinkies down the stairs. Slinkies aren''t really a thing in the dungeon, but Mika was able to make some pretty good ones out of ice. I think her old blacksmith knowledge helped. It¡¯s almost as fun as marble racing. Almost. Marbles don¡¯t have the potential to break or melt halfway through a race. For each race Mika made ten slinkies, then we all chose which one we wanted, leaving her with the tenth one. That way no one can say she¡¯s cheating. Out of three races, Avi got second place twice. At this point we all kinda agree there¡¯s some silver magic deal that influences the universe and makes him get second. In the third race he got seventh place, so the magic doesn''t, like, doom him to always be second. Which is good. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I got fifth place, then third, then fourth. Not great, but at least I kept in the top half. Like I''ve said before, winning doesn''t matter as long as you¡¯re consistently ok. ¡­Sure, winning would be nice, but it isn''t something I''m going to stress out over. Well, winning the dungeon would be nice. Kimi and Aya are determined to win, and I''ll help them to the best of my ability. They said it¡¯s important, but didn''t say why. Just that there¡¯s more to the prize than what the Director told us. Avi knows, if I wanted to know what the big deal was I could ask him. It¡¯s not that I don''t care, it¡¯s just that I don''t see how knowing what it is would do anything but stress me out. Avi was super stressed for a little bit after he found out, and he said it was something no one could do anything about. If I can''t do anything about it, I don''t need the extra stress. All that happened back when we were in our old dungeon for a cycle. Kimi told Y, and I think Aya told Lily, but other than that they just told us winning is important and we should really try to win. Which is what we were doing anyways. Ok, the clock just chimed midnight. We were gonna go out at 12:08, because that way we wouldn''t be accidentally running outside at the same time as other people. It sounds like that was a good idea, cuz people from Group 3 are leaving their house. So we wait until 12:38 now. Meaning I have another half-hour to wait. I think I''m gonna go decorate the cakes for Jenny and Lewis. Just so I don''t fall asleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 10 (3) Dear Diary, The raid last night went super well! No one in our group died, we killed off the last of the wyverns, and we also took out two of Group 3¡¯s players! With fighting during the day, now only Lewis, Jenny and one other dragon are still around. We¡¯re gonna go out at 11:08 and very politely ask if we may kill them. All the groups have some kind of long-range weapon aimed at all the other doors now. So we¡¯re gonna sneak out Samuel¡¯s window. We¡¯re at the end, and his window is on the side where he can''t see any of the other buildings, so it should be safe. If we manage to kill them, the cycle will reset! A three-day cycle feels super short. Even our last PVP was like¡­ five days? I don''t think there¡¯s ever been a three-day cycle in the history of dungeons. Wait, that means we¡¯ll only be neko for three days! That¡¯s super unfair! I wonder why we can''t choose our race. The Director never said. I know the Admins all got to choose a race for us to be, but I think we should be our Admin¡¯s race permanently. That way I could stay a catgirl, and Y wouldn''t have to ever be a half-dragon, and Fire could always have wings. All good things. I wonder if anyone in any of the other groups has issues with certain races. Probably. Maybe there¡¯s someone who can''t take being a tiny fairy, or¡­ I don''t know, thinks hobgoblins are super ugly and can''t deal with it. Altho it¡¯s more probable that some people have issues with party number, like they hate being alone or being around more than five people at once. Anyways, I don''t have any cakes or cookies to give out tonight, which is sad. I feel like I need to make an apology cake for all the dragons when this is over. Or, multiple apology cakes. Cuz they¡¯re on three different Floors. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I wonder if anyone will accuse us of having an unfair advantage, since we¡¯re from the same dungeon as Jenny and Lewis. I don''t think so, or whoever was from the dungeon the six dragons are from would have a triple unfair advantage. Altho no one has tried talking to them, so maybe they think they can''t talk to them, and us knowing that talking is possible is an advantage. Which it is, but it isn''t an unfair one. Knowing that it¡¯s possible to make friends isn''t an unfair advantage. The clock just struck eleven, so I have to get ready! Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Athena
To: [Group A]
Subject: Dandelions
We begin next cycle. Be ready.
*****
The last dragon has been defeated! Congratulations, players of Group 6, for having the most collected points. Second place is Group 4, third place is Group 1. For Group 6, as promised, all players get one win counted towards them. For Group 4, eight players may have one win. You may choose who doesn''t receive a win. For Group 1, five players will receive wins. To avoid conflict, I shall decide who I give the wins to in your group. Next cycle I am introducing mounts, purchasable in the Floor 1 inventory shop. The cycle will be a solo cycle, so choose wisely. Director.
Cycle 11 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! We''re hobgoblins! We¡¯re also all solo players this cycle. I''m going slower since I don''t have Level 100 teleport any more, but not all that much slower. I hope next cycle I get to be in a party with Avi. Three days wasn''t nearly long enough to be with him after a full cycle apart. And yeah, we could try and keep up with each other this cycle, but I really want to see how much longer it takes me to get to the end this time than it did when I had maxed out teleport. Plus Fire is all by herself on Floor 1. I kinda feel like I should finish as quickly as possible to get to her. Not that she¡¯s in any way my responsibility, but¡­ I don''t know. If I were stuck on Floor 1 by myself, I''d appreciate someone hurrying to the end so I didn''t have to be alone. In other news! This cycle the Director introduced mounts! What are mounts, you ask? They are things to ride around on! First there¡¯s an electric moped, which requires yellow lightning magic to recharge. Then there¡¯s a carpet, which requires charm or psychic magic to use. Then there¡¯s a cloud, which requires water or ice magic. And lastly there¡¯s a thing that kinda looks like a hamster wheel with chairs inside, that requires brown or orange (earth and transmutation) magic to run. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Needless to say, Avi and I are very disappointed. We will continue to kidnap wolves and ride around on them. A part of me is disappointed that no mount works with green or silver magic, but I''m not exactly sure how those would work. I mean, silver magic is illusions. The point of illusions is that they¡¯re not really there. I guess the Director could give Avi a bicycle that looks like a fancy motorcycle? I don''t know. And something to ride around on that¡¯s made out of poison just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. So it looks like I''m not going to get a real mount any time soon. Oh well. It¡¯s not like the mounts go much faster than a normal walk, and teleport doesn''t work on them. Anyways. Something feels kinda weird with the NPCs this cycle. Like, I show up and offer everyone food like normal, and they¡¯re not sure what to do. Kinda like back on the second cycle. They¡¯re still nice and polite, just kinda awkward. I wonder if the Director told them to not take food from me. No, that¡¯s not it. If she didn''t want people to take food from me, she probably would have told me to stop offering them food first. It would be a lot easier to ask one person (me) to stop doing something than ask everyone in the whole dungeon who isn''t me to stop doing something. I mean, she never did tell me why she brought me to her office that one time. Maybe that was it? I don''t know. But people keep accepting the food, so I''ll keep making it for them until someone tells me to stop. Because I''m a chef, and that¡¯s what chefs do. Nya. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 11 (2) Dear Diary, Ok, yep, something is super weird. People are¡­ hiding? Kinda? Or, more like they¡¯re all trying to sneak attack. Now that I''ve been through twenty floors I can tell all the people are waiting by the exits to attack. They aren''t spread out like they usually are. But they¡¯re still polite when I give them food, so I guess it''s fine? I think it¡¯s something that is solidly Not My Problem. So I''m gonna just keep doing what I''m doing, and hope everyone is ok. I mean, I could ask. But that kinda feels like something I shouldn''t do. I''m sure whatever people are doing, they¡¯ve got a good reason to do it. Avi said he¡¯s been getting through ok, but some people have attacked him. They stopped when he politely asked them not to, tho. He¡¯s been sending out illusions of himself for them to attack and ¡°kill¡± first, then when they¡¯re confused about it being an illusion he talks to them. So he¡¯s ok. Kimi and Y have asked if I can leave food for them to use here, on Floor 20. So I made a bunch extra food tonight. I gave the catgirl here a list of people to give it to if they ask. So yeah, I''m kinda tired. And I''ve got a long day of semi-awkward interactions to get through tomorrow! Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . The Admins were panicking. The mobs were suddenly organized, attacking in new patterns that were near-unbeatable by players. And the NPCs simply weren''t around. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. It had been two days and over half of the players were still attached to the Floor 1 checkpoint. Only thirteen players had made it beyond Floor 10. Admin 6 watched a player die, slowly realizing why this situation sounded familiar. He turned away from the screen to look at Admin 3. Next to him, Admin 5 finished sending a message to her players and sat back. She noticed 6, and followed his gaze to 3. Her eyes widened as she figured it out, glancing momentarily back at 6 before glaring at Admin 3. Admin 2 looked over to Admin 5, saw her glare, and turned curiously to 3. Suddenly he inhaled sharply, eyes narrowing at 3. Admin 1 heard the gasp and glanced over. He saw what was happening and moved his chair back to get a better look at Admin 3. His face twitched in realization, and he crossed his arms. Admin 4 turned to say something to 5, paused, and looked around. He frowned at the screens, then stopped. His chair squeaked as he moved to face Admin 3. Admin 3 broke into a sweat, pretending to not notice. The room was dead silent as everyone watched him type something, backspacing several times. Finally he spun around. ¡°What?!¡± he snapped. ¡°Which catgirls did you send to the dungeon?¡± Admin 1 asked. ¡°Does it matter?¡± 3 countered. ¡°Would it happen to be the ones you were constantly complaining about?¡± Admin 5 asked. 3¡¯s face went red and splotchy. ¡°Well I couldn''t leave them in my dungeon, who knows what they would have done!¡± He turned back to his screen, scooting his chair in closer. ¡°They¡¯re the Director¡¯s problem now!¡± ¡°Does she know?¡± Admin 2 asked. ¡°Yeah,¡± 3 said. ¡°Totally. I asked her, joking, to make my catgirls the final boss. Didn''t think she¡¯d do it, and she never asked why, but¡­ Her problem now.¡± Admin 4 rubbed his chin. ¡°So that¡¯s why she changed her design¡­¡± ¡°Changed?¡± 6 asked. 4 looked at him. ¡°She asked for 11 Floors total from each of us. She was going to make the size of her dungeon 75 Floors, with some of her own designs in there. Then she changed to only have 60 Floors. Floor 1 originally belonged to 3, too. So she left out six of our suggested Floors and cut the size down to 60, with the final boss being a catgirl. I wondered why, and this explains it. Kinda.¡± The Admins were silent for a few seconds, considering the situation. One after the other they shrugged and went back to work. It was 3¡¯s fault, but he was right. This was up to the Director to fix. Cycle 11 (Mika) ¡°Hijo de puta!¡± Mika shouted, respawning on Floor 10. She''d been on Floor 14. The checkpoint had been so close! And then the ghosts had swarmed her. She stormed over to the diner, muttering curses in two languages. Staab and Samuel were at a booth with Bacon and Kimi. Mika slid onto the bench next to Sam and thumped her forehead on the table. ¡°Didn''t work?¡± Samuel guessed. Mika held up her middle finger. ¡°To catch you up,¡± Kimi said, ¡°Nikki finally replied, and says she hasn''t had any problems.¡± Mika lifted her head. ¡°Seriously? How?¡± Staab smirked. ¡°Take a wild guess.¡± Mika sat up. ¡°Ok so she¡¯s giving out food and acting super cheerful. Still, that requires her to talk to people. I don''t get that chance.¡± ¡°Yeah, but you¡¯ve never really tried talking to people,¡± Kimi said. ¡°At this point everything in the dungeon with over two brain cells recognizes Nikki as Happy Food Person. And Avi as Quiet Food Person. Their goal was to make friends with everything, and now all their friends are helping them.¡± Samuel tapped his notebook. ¡°So far the only people able to advance are those with charm magic or an invisibility and teleport combo. Confirmed it with Bacon, 9 and Ringo¡¯s groups. Avi and Nikki are the only outliers. We have to do what they do.¡± ¡°Ok, but¡­¡± Mika stopped. She looked at Bacon. ¡°You¡¯ve got cooking pretty high, right?¡± Bacon smiled sweetly. ¡°Why yes, yes I do,¡± she answered. ¡°I wish this cycle we were in groups,¡± Staab said. ¡°Holding out a plate of cookies and asking to not be ambushed will feel¡­ silly.¡± ¡°Where will you get cookies?¡± Bacon asked flatly. ¡°Can''t bake on a campfire.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Samuel pointed to the diner¡¯s kitchen door. ¡°Well, you can bake on a campfire,¡± Kimi said. ¡°But we can also just use the oven here.¡± Bacon frowned. ¡°No. That¡¯s- No, we can¡¯t go in there.¡± They all looked at Mika. Mika was glad she didn''t have cat ears displaying her emotions at the moment. She smiled at Bacon, hoping it didn''t look like she was keeping a major secret. ¡°Sure we can, it¡¯s not that big of a deal.¡± ¡°Ok, what¡¯s going on?¡± Bacon asked. Apparently Mika had failed. Samuel nudged her, getting up. ¡°Come on, catgirls, let¡¯s do some cooking!¡± Bacon stared at the group, eyes going wide. ¡°Oh that explains so much.¡± Mika glared, letting Sam and Staab out of the booth. ¡°Like what?¡± ¡°For the record I was never a catgirl,¡± Staab said. ¡°Everyone else was, at some point or other. I was just a mob.¡± Bacon smiled at Mika, following Kimi out of the booth. ¡°Let¡¯s just say you and your group are¡­ special. Now let¡¯s bake some cookies!¡± ***** . . . The Director frowned, watching the lead player. The one spreading chaos through her dungeon. The one who had carefully planned this cycles in advance. Nikki. A few cycles back she¡¯d left messages in bottles on the first ten floors. The notes had been destroyed, but the Director still had videos showing Nikki handing them over. Clearly the notes had been plans. And after getting ahead of everyone, which she was easily able to do with her teleport once her friends stalled everyone else, telling people on the lower floors what to do was easy. She handed out food, telling them her plans. Nikki would have used the messaging system for this, if she¡¯d had access to it. The Director now wished she¡¯d given the girl access, if only to be able to read the messages herself. Surely not everyone was bribable with pizza and cupcakes. Surely Nikki had some enemies. Somewhere. Although someone this cunning might truly be able to charm everyone. The player in second place was Y. He was simply using invisibility and teleport to slip by everyone unnoticed. But the third, somehow, was Avi. The Director didn''t find it unusual that members of Nikki¡¯s core group were in the lead. Nor did she find it strange it was these two specifically. Kimi had stayed behind to talk to the other members of Admin 6¡¯s group, as she had a tighter bond with them than the two men. Y getting ahead was something the Director could allow. Other players were using the same strategy as him. It was fine. But of the fifteen players with access to silver magic, only two people used it. The Director decided it was time to reduce that number to one. Admin 6 had made random mobs players, after all. Surely he wouldn''t mind if she switched one mob out for another. Cycle 11 (3) Dear Diary, Well, I''m on Floor 40 again. Lyra didn''t come down to give me food when I showed up, so I kinda went into her kitchen and made food myself. I feel bad. It was rude. She¡¯s specifically told me she doesn''t want me to use her kitchen, and I did. But she wasn''t around! Maybe she was super busy painting or something, and didn''t want to stop. I mean, being interrupted by your job when in the middle of artistic inspiration totally sucks. I get that. So it would have been more rude to insist she come down and cook something for me. Besides, I cleaned up after myself. It¡¯s like no one was ever there. And it was just one meal. I didn''t make meatballs for the wolves or anything, only food for me. So it¡¯s ok. I''ll apologize next time I see her. Yeah. It¡¯ll be fine. And maybe now that she knows I clean up after myself she¡¯ll let me use her kitchen! In other news, everyone is still kinda acting weird. But they accept food and let me pass, so it¡¯s all good I guess. Oh, I ended up not kidnapping any dire wolves. Cuz it would just be one, and I don''t want them to feel lonely without their pack around. I feel lonely without my people around, and I understand what¡¯s going on and why I''m alone. Can''t explain that to a doggo. Well, I could if I had the Talk With Animals spell, but I don''t. I¡­ kinda don''t like it. Yes, there¡¯s benefit to being able to explain things to pets, but I feel like if I can''t tell how they¡¯re feeling just by watching their body language I''ve failed as a pet owner. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. It¡¯s a matter of pride. Or more like the spell is cheating. Something like that. And yeah, I miss having someone around to talk to. I really hope I get to spend all next cycle with Avi. I mean, we¡¯re a couple because we like spending time with each other. Sure, we had most of three days together last cycle, but I want to spend most of every day with him. He wasn''t too far behind me, so I hope he gets back to Floor 1 a day or two after I do. That would be nice. But at least I know Fire will be there, so when I get back I won''t be totally alone. Being totally alone might kill me. Anyways, I should get some sleep soon. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Bonecrusher the Black
To: Athena
Subject: Something strange
The Director switched one of my kobolds with a player from my old dungeon. Not the player who used to be a kobold, either. The kobold she took was one of our blacksmiths; well enough known and liked, but not strategically important in any way. Ask the catgirls to report if they see the other players from Admin 6¡¯s group. I''ll let you know if they come through here.
Cycle 11 (Admin 2) Admin 2 worked diligently, putting things into place. Cities were big and complicated, and he¡¯d paused them to build a few towns. Towns were the lifeblood of any good country; small communities which produced the food that everyone in cities ate. Without towns running, cities wouldn¡¯t even be able to crawl. Suddenly Admin 6 jumped up, his chair spinning away behind him. He stared at his screen, fists clenched. ¡°Everything all right?¡± Admin 5 asked. Admin 6 looked over to find everyone watching him. ¡°She replaced one of my players,¡± he said. ¡°She swapped him with a random mob.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Admin 3 asked. ¡°The Director didn''t let you know beforehand?¡± Admin 5 asked. ¡°Wait, is it that you¡¯re just now noticing or that she just now swapped him?¡± Admin 2 asked, frowning. ¡°She just now swapped him,¡± Admin 6 said. ¡°Or, recently. Within the last¡­¡± He paused, checking something on a screen. ¡°Twenty hours. And no, she didn''t let me know.¡± He stepped back, collapsing into his chair. ¡°What did the player do to be replaced?¡± Admin 3 asked. 6 glared at him. ¡°Existed,¡± he snapped. Admin 2 got up. ¡°That¡¯s too far,¡± he decided. ¡°I''ll go talk to her.¡± ¡°What will you say?¡± 5 asked. ¡°That she can''t just randomly swap out our players,¡± he shrugged. ¡°Not even 6¡¯s players. If she does it to one of us, what¡¯s to stop her from swapping out all our players?¡± 3 didn''t look convinced. ¡°6 is a-¡± ¡°He¡¯s one of us,¡± 1 said sharply. ¡°She can''t sabotage someone without a good reason,¡± 4 said. ¡°She could easily say he lost. She¡¯s already banned him from winning completely. Switching out players will only ruin the game.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± 6 said softly. 2 nodded. ¡°Precisely. I''ll just see what she has to say.¡± He teleported himself out of the room, landing in the Director¡¯s office. The Director looked over from her screen, raising an eyebrow. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Ma¡¯am,¡± Admin 2 said, starting to doubt himself. ¡°May I ask why you switched out one of Admin 6¡¯s players mid-cycle?¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°To teach the player causing problems a lesson,¡± she said calmly. ¡°The- What?¡± She smiled patiently. ¡°The player causing the mob riots is from Admin 6¡¯s group. Her ¡®husband¡¯ is the player I switched out.¡± 2 stared at her blankly. ¡°The¡­¡± The Director sighed. ¡°Surely you¡¯ve noticed some problems in the dungeon at the moment? Those problems were all caused by one of Admin 6¡¯s players. I-¡± ¡°No they weren''t,¡± he said, cutting her off. She glared, and he immediately regretted cutting her off. ¡°Ma¡¯am, the riots were caused by Admin 3¡¯s catgirls. The ones on Floor 60.¡± ¡°No,¡± she said calmly. ¡°They were caused by Nikki, the player currently in the lead.¡± ¡°They were caused by Admin 3¡¯s catgirls,¡± he said flatly. ¡°The spy somehow found out about the message system and had players take messages in bottles to all the floors with mobs and NPCs on them. It¡¯s almost exactly the same thing as what they did in Admin 3¡¯s dungeon.¡± ¡°She couldn''t have,¡± the Director said. ¡°Cycle reset cleans out player inventories. How could the bottles have been from her?¡± Admin 2 shook his head. ¡°It doesn''t wipe them completely. A few cheap, non-magical bottles wouldn''t be removed.¡± ¡°Either way, I''m positive it was this player¡¯s idea,¡± she said. ¡°Regardless. Removing a player mid-cycle with no warning or explanation is¡­ very bad form,¡± he said, giving her an opportunity to realize her mistake. She rolled her eyes. ¡°Forgive me for slighting Administrator 6.¡± ¡°No,¡± Admin 2 said firmly. ¡°You went behind an Admin¡¯s back to change things in the dungeon. You switched one of our players. That crosses a line for us. Yes, you have the authority to change out players, but the rules state you must advise the respective Admin of your intent and wait until the cycle reset to do so.¡± The Director watched him for a few seconds. ¡°You¡¯re siding with him, then?¡± ¡°I¡¯m siding with whoever says rules must be obeyed,¡± he decided. ¡°Ma¡¯am, we work with the rules of gravity and entropy and math and physics. Complicated things put into place aeons ago, which have never changed. They are constant for everyone. I have spent five hundred years working within strict rules. I can¡¯t work with gravity that fluctuates, I can¡¯t work with a calculator that gives me vague estimations, and I can¡¯t work under someone who disregards her own guidelines based on emotional decisions.¡± He took a deep breath. ¡°We¡¯ve all disagreed with rules and tried to break them. That¡¯s how Admin 5 got her Floor where gravity doesn¡¯t work. You were there when I was new and campaigned for a planet to have five moons. Admin 6 is very young, and I¡¯m sorry the rules he disagrees with are ones you made. You punished him, and he has learned his lesson. But you can¡¯t change things to continue to spite him or his players. There will be complaints if you do.¡± ¡°Oh, dear me, complaints,¡± she muttered, turning back to her screen. ¡°Yes. Complaints." He hesitated, wondering how far he should push. "Admin 1 and I are still in regular communication with Naamah.¡± The Director visibly jolted. Admin 2 smiled faintly. ¡°She¡¯s Watcher 3 now. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d accept anyone as a Watcher who makes rules they themselves can¡¯t follow.¡± She shot him a vile look, then angrily typed a few words. ¡°There. Admin 6¡¯s player has been reinstated. Thank you for helping me see the error of my ways.¡± ¡°You¡¯re quite welcome,¡± he said, bowing before turning away. ¡°And check the catgirl¡¯s messages. She¡¯s the problem, not any player.¡± ¡°If you insist.¡± Cycle 11 (4) Dear Diary, Well, I¡¯m back on Floor 1! It¡¯s¡­ been a weird couple of days. Avi was apparently turned into a kobold for a couple hours? He freaked out, I freaked out, Lewis freaked out, the kobold who was suddenly turned into a player freaked out, I think the Admin freaked out¡­ Yeah, no one was happy. And then, right as we were gonna see what to do about it, Avi was switched back. With no warning or anything. Which kinda replaced the AAAAH feeling with an oh heck feeling. Like, we don''t know what¡¯s going on. We don''t know what happened. We don''t know if it¡¯ll happen again. Was it just a random bug, or was it something deliberate? We don''t know! Yeah, next cycle if I don''t get to be in a party with Avi, I''m gonna suggest we just stay behind together. I need to be with him. The Admin- Our Admin said the Director did it. But he didn''t say why, only that he¡¯d look into it, and then I never heard from him again. I don''t know, maybe I should write the Director and ask? But then she was mean to Avi, and what she says might make me mad. I''d rather not be mad at the person who controls literally everything. Anyways, I''m here and Fire is here. No one else is back yet, but she said it took a while for everyone to leave. Like, way longer than it should have. I guess everyone kept respawning here? And they just got madder and madder about it. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Which kinda makes me wonder even more what was going on. If I could I¡¯d message someone and ask, but I don''t have anyone¡¯s number here. I can''t even message Nat. I need to get her number next time I''m on their floor. Oh! Floor 60! When I got there, the catgirls had put the reset button in an obvious trap. Not as obvious as our lotus flower trap, but still very clearly a trap. When I stopped, one of them tried charming me into getting the button. That was weird. I''ve never been charmed before. Not really. Sure, Lily¡¯s done it, but it was mostly to practice. She¡¯d do things like ask for food, then charm me to bring it to her, so something I was already doing anyways. Meaning I never felt any difference. This was me doing something I knew was a bad idea that I very much didn''t want to do, but I couldn''t stop. It kinda felt like being in a car and realizing the brakes don''t work. I told them that charming people is rude, and why don''t we just all go to the diner for cookies and to talk things over. It took a few seconds for them to agree and release the charm, at which point I was very concerned for my health and safety. They came out of hiding and said they were testing everyone, and that I¡¯d passed, and they gave me the button. Which was just¡­ very strange. I don''t know, the whole thing gave me a weird feeling that didn''t help the already bad feelings from Avi being kinda kidnapped. Hopefully tomorrow is a good day. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 11 (5) Dear Diary, Yep, today was a much better day than yesterday! I made baked alaska with Fire. She has amazing heat control. I doubt anyone in the history of ever has made such a perfect baked alaska. Tomorrow I''m gonna see if we can make the perfect creme brulee. And bananas foster. And¡­ what other deserts get set on fire¡­ cherries jubilee! Yeah, that should be fun! I also taught Fire how to eat with chopsticks. She said she doesn''t like nachos cus her fingers get dirty, and anyone who eats nachos with a fork is a heathen, but chopsticks kinda act like finger extensions. So they¡¯re perfect. It took her a little while to figure them out, but she caught on faster than some people. Aya tried learning and never did figure them out. Oh, apparently Kimi has asked Fire to inform her if anyone tries making an energy drink again. A part of me kiiiinda wants to do it, mostly cuz Kimi¡¯s not the boss of me and I''m an adult who can cook whatever I want. But really it¡¯s just a silly thing that I don''t need to do again. Hmmm, maybe I should try making a night-night drink. The opposite of an energy drink. Something that would make whoever drinks it immediately pass out. That would be specifically doing what Kimi asked. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Ok, yeah, I¡¯m gonna ask Y to help me make a night-night drink when he gets here. He should be here tonight or tomorrow, he wasn''t too far behind me. Oh, since we¡¯re on Floor 1, Fire got access to the ¡°mount¡± things. She¡¯s been trying to practice with them, but she says she prefers wings and wolves. Next cycle we¡¯re gonna be fairies, so she won''t need a mount anyways. I think, if I had a choice between mounts or the shape-changing belts from our old dungeon, I''d take the belts. They weren''t restricted to magic type. And running around as a cheetah was super fun. ¡­And I''m definitely not talking about those things to avoid talking about how I''m still kinda shaken up about everything that happened this week. Not avoiding that topic at all, nope. I absolutely didn''t have nightmares last night or anything. I just¡­ I need to be with Avi. I need him to tell me it¡¯ll all be ok. But until then I can just focus on cooking and talking with Fire. Fire is a good person to talk to. She really thinks before she says anything. And sure, her suggestion that we incinerate the Director might not be viable, but it¡¯s certainly a very her suggestion. I hope Avi gets here tomorrow. I hope the catgirls on Floor 60 don''t do anything mean to trap him there. If they do I might not be nice to them the next time I go through. I won''t be mean, because that would be mean. But I will be¡­ exceedingly polite. Being pointedly polite is almost as bad as being outright insulting. Sometimes. I think. But before that I have to wait for Avi to get here. Goodnight, Dungeon¡­ Cycle 11 (6) Dear Diary, Y got here, but Avi isn''t here yet. Avi says he should be here tomorrow before lunch, if everything works out. So here¡¯s hoping everything works out. I asked Y what he thought happened, with the random switch, and he thinks maybe the Director was trying to figure out who was causing all the problems. Maybe. He hasn''t heard of anyone else being switched, but then he hasn''t talked to anyone other than Kimi. Oh yeah, Kimi apparently gave up fighting and has been giving everyone cookies to get through the floors. She says it works, and I''m glad. I still don''t know why the NPCs are acting all weird, but I''m glad they¡¯re being nice to people with food. I think everyone should be nice to people who make food. And drinks. If you¡¯re mean to someone who makes drinks, you deserve whatever poison they put in it. Speaking of drinks, Y agreed that making a night-night drink would be a good idea, but it¡¯s surprisingly hard to make a drink that will put someone to sleep without resorting to hard drugs or lethal chemicals. Like, there are calming things, but unless the drink kinda damages the brain it¡¯s not going to work on everyone. He then went into detail about how a significant percent of Earth¡¯s population had sleep-related issues, and how people have been searching for a non-harmful and non-addictive cure for insomnia for decades, with no real success. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it And then he forgot I don''t speak Chemical and started explaining how to make chloroform and similar things. Altho it kinda got me thinking about chemicals for cleaning. Like, we have magic that cleans things, but I''m not 100% sure what it does. Like, if it gets rid of bacteria and germs, or just germs, or what. The only thing I was provided in my diner was dish soap, so I used that to clean everything that needed something more than water. But if we go to a new world, and that new world has magic, will someone make bleach and stuff? Or is a magic cleaning spell just as good as bleach? I guess I''ll have to wait and see! Incidentally, I now know that bleach is an important ingredient in lots of chemicals that are suuuuuper bad for your brain. I''m kinda glad it doesn''t exist here, cuz after learning about it from Y I don''t ever want to be within ten feet of it ever again. If I ever have kids, bleach will not be allowed in my house. In other news, Fire said she wanted to try one of the ranch balls that we use to kill slimes. We warned her that they were super gross, but she insisted. So we made a batch and gave one to her. She now agrees they are super gross, and says she understands why they¡¯re capable of killing slimes. I mean, the ¡°ranch¡± that we make is really a mix of ranch and mayonnaise, with extra egg yolk. It¡¯s not lethal, but it is very¡­ unpleasant. And I don''t bother putting anything in the bread to make it yummy, no sugar or salt or anything, and I bake them a teeny bit too long so they hold their shape better, so the ranch ball shells kinda taste a little like cardboard. Altho I will admit I''ve never tasted both things together. I just tried them apart out of curiosity. ¡­I¡¯m a chef, I have to taste the food I make, even the food meant to kill slimes. Anyways, it¡¯s getting late. I should sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 11 (7) Dear Diary, Avi is here! He got back exactly when he said he would! Life is good again. A player from Admin 2¡¯s group also got here, so some people have figured out how to get through. He said he just used invisibility and teleport, same as Y. I wonder if everyone who gets here will be using teleport and invisibility. I mean, it wouldn''t work on some floors. Like the goblins we have to kill to get keys. But it ought to work on most floors. Avi and Y and Fire and I wrote messages to ask where people are, and most seem to still be above Floor 40. Kimi is keeping pace with Aya, the Sams, Mika and Bacon. They¡¯re all on Floor 45, so they should be here day after tomorrow maybe. They said Bacon has been making cookies for them to use, so I messaged her with a list of what foods everyone¡¯s asked for. I really need to spend a day cooking with Bacon. Mika says she was very extremely jealous when she found out I have my full chef¡¯s inventory. Which, if I didn''t have all my food I¡¯d be super jealous of someone who did. Oh, Avi said that when he got to Floor 60 the catgirls asked him to defeat them in battle. He asked if there was a way that didn''t involve fighting, and after discussing it they decided on a game of chess. Except there isn¡¯t a chess set available in the shop, and Avi doesn''t know how to play chess. So they debated checkers, then poker, then hearts, then charades, and finally settled on rock-paper-scissors. Avi won best out of thirteen, so they gave him the reset button. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. We should really message the Director or someone and ask for more board games. Anyways, Y said that tomorrow he¡¯s going to teach Fire how to properly remove all oxygen from a closed room, so Avi and I have to wake up early and make sure that ¡°room¡± isn''t our common area. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . The Director stared, emotionless, as Admin 3 made excuse after excuse. ¡°Stop,¡± she finally ordered. He stuttered to a halt. ¡°I will give you five more words to explain yourself, and then I will decide what I shall do,¡± she said. Admin 3 grumbled, half-starting several times before deciding what to say. ¡°They¡¯re¡­ too¡­ smart for me.¡± ¡°So you made the catgirls my problem?¡± she filled in. He nodded. The Director sat back, debating. ¡°The easiest thing would be to send them back to your dungeon and replace them with non-problematic catgirls.¡± He shook his head vehemently. ¡°Or¡­ I could simply ignore the problem and see how it plays out.¡± He shook his head slowly and deliberately. She ignored that. ¡°After all, in nineteen cycles everyone will be put on a world where they will have to fend for themselves. They must learn to handle problems without our intervention.¡± ¡°But-¡± ¡°Yes, that is what I shall do,¡± the Director decided. ¡°Nothing. I will let the players figure this out on their own.¡± Admin 3 stared at her in shock, then horror, then resignation. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡± She smiled as he vanished. This would be interesting. Cycle 11 (8) Dear Diary, Kimi got here tonight! It¡¯s been three days since I wrote last. Another player from Admin 2 got here, and someone from Admin 5. That makes seven people total who have pushed the button, so the cycle will probably reset tomorrow morning. Aya, the Sams, Mika and Bacon are all between Floor 58 and 59. Kimi said she was a little ahead, then decided to push on without them to get to Y. So yeah, they¡¯re all happy. Not much has really happened. Oh, Y and Fire removed all the oxygen from her bedroom in Admin 4¡¯s building. It was, admittedly, interesting to watch. And then walking into the room was certainly an experience. It kinda felt like a very strange anxiety attack. Like, there was enough air around me to go in and out of my lungs, but the air was wrong. It wasn''t doing what air is supposed to do. And then I got dizzy and felt like I was gonna throw up, and Avi pulled me out. Overall, I don''t know why I did it. I wasn''t even really that curious. Peer pressure, I guess? Everyone else was doing it, sooo¡­ Anyways, it¡¯s a thing I never have to do again. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Yesterday morning Avi and I had a talk about¡­ things. We needed to make a plan for if we¡¯re ever separated again. If either of us becomes an NPC, the other will get to our floor as fast as possible and just stay there. If both of us become NPCs and we¡¯re sent to different floors, there¡¯s not much we could do but beg our Admin to fix it. If one of us has our memories reset, well, I have my diary. I say it on the first page: Avi is the love of my life. The only thing we don''t know about is, what we¡¯ll do if we¡¯re separated when we go to the next world. I hope we¡¯ll all be put together. If we aren''t, we¡¯ll spend our lives looking for each other. And in the meantime, we¡¯re just going to be together as much as possible. I know none of those are particularly good or detailed plans. But they¡¯re something. I know that, obviously, Avi being randomly turned into a kobold made everyone freak out. No one knew what was going on and it was weird and scary and all that. But it was also scary on a deeper level. I don''t know, I guess it just never really sank in before how much my life¡­ isn''t mine. The Admin and the Director can really change anything about us any time they want, and there¡¯s nothing I can do about it. I really, really don''t like thinking about it. So I''ll just pretend I don''t know, and spend more time with my husband and friends. I''ll just keep cooking for people and hope no one gets mad at me. I¡­ I want to go home. Back to my diner on Floor 93. I want to go back to being a catgirl whose only concern is giving pep talks to marbles so they win races. I want to be bored. I- I need to go be with Avi. Goodnight, Dungeon.
Cycle 12 (1) Athena drummed her fingers on her desk, reading over the message from the Director for the thousandth time.
From: The Director
To: Athena
Subject: Revolt
Your little game seems cute. I look forward to seeing what you do next.
Athena glanced towards the ceiling. Was the Director seriously not going to do anything? She glared out at her shop, then waved the message away. Fine. It was time to change tactics.
From: Athena
To: Samuel
Subject: Hey, handsome
What would I have to offer for you to do anything I ask?
***** Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re fairies! Parties this cycle are teams of two, and I''m with Avi, and nothing else matters. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Well, ok, some things matter. Like how the NPCs aren''t really fighting this cycle, but they aren''t stopping us, either. They¡¯re just ignoring all the players. Until I bring out food. People always pay attention to food. But the normal players are being ignored. So yeah, we don''t really know what happened last cycle. It was just weird. Oh, Lily is with Mika this cycle. Staab is with Samuel, Samurai is with Aya, and Kimi and Y are together. I guess I had more important things to focus on than Lily, cuz I missed it when she and Staab broke up. They didn''t even consider being in a party together. Kimi and Aya made a betting pool on if Lily will piss off Mika this cycle. The only one who thinks that won''t happen is Samuel. Altho a part of me thinks he just said that to bet against his sister. I wonder if the other groups have someone determined to cause drama in them. Somehow, that would make me feel better. Like we aren''t the only group that¡¯s kinda divided. Even if the division is ¡°everyone against Lily¡±. I''ll have to ask Octavius if there¡¯s anyone in Admin 4¡¯s group determined to cause drama. I could ask Fire or Steel, but I don''t think they¡¯d really notice. Frog¡¯s group is a bigger target, so they might have had someone inflict drama on them. Oh, the Sams want to see if we can all be the same color again one cycle. We¡¯re ok with this, but there¡¯s no easy way of choosing which color to be. I mean, last time we decided with a marble race. But we can''t do that here. I guess we could do a race to the end, but we¡¯re in pairs. Maybe some kind of tiered rock-paper-scissors tournament would work? Or tic-tac-toe? Aya said it might be nice to ask the Admin. Since we are technically his group. And yeah, he might know what color we¡¯d all be best as. I wouldn''t be surprised if he has a spreadsheet or something with all that info. If I had to guess, I¡¯d probably say black. Since my teleport is a black spell, and Y uses lots of black magic, and the Sams use Silence (a black spell) on each other a lot. If not that, then maybe pink? Lily and Samurai both use pink spells. Or maybe yellow. Or red. In any case, I know it won''t be green. Or silver, since that requires special permission. Well, I have that permission, but I¡¯ve only ever used it once. I don''t think anyone else has permission to use silver magic. I should ask! We should try being a super special shiny silver set of¡­ of simply¡­ spectacular¡­ uhh¡­ squad! ¡­Ok that got away from me, I need sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 12 (2) Dear Diary, It has been at least two pages since I¡¯ve mentioned that my husband is just the absolute best. So I will remind you, Diary Dearest, that Avi is and always will be the love of my life. Today we talked about what we¡¯re going to do when we''re out of the dungeon. There are a lot of things we don''t know, but that¡¯s ok. We¡¯re gonna live in a little town with everyone, and I''m going to have a restaurant. He¡¯s gonna be a vet. And yes, the town will use dinosaurs for labor. I''m sure there will be many practical uses for stegosauruses. The town will be at the foot of a mountain, and at the top of the mountain is where all the kobolds will live. And Lewis. And Jenny. And her wyverns. Our house will be on the second floor of my restaurant, so that it always smells like yummy food. Like my diner on Floor 93, but twice as big. We¡¯ll have two kids, and if Kimi and Y have kids then we¡¯ll raise them as cousins. It¡¯ll be a new world, so Kimi can be my sister. We haven''t decided what we¡¯ll name our kids, though. Avi wants something long and formal that can be shortened to a cute nickname. Whereas I say it¡¯s a new world with new rules, so we should just start with the cute short name. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. And then when we get old we¡¯ll give the house and restaurant to whichever of the kids wants it more, and we¡¯ll live at the edge of town with all of our two thousand extremely dangerous pets. Mika will still be upset by us having super dangerous pets, and we¡¯ll just keep laughing about it. People say that being in a relationship is all about compromise, but Avi and I don''t have much to compromise on. We just agree on pretty much everything. Except what type of names to give our kids, but that won''t be an issue until I get pregnant. I wonder if the neko race will be more prone to having twins and triplets. Cuz, well, cat traits. After knowing the Sams I kinda hope not, cuz they¡¯re weird. I''m sure not all sets of twins are weird, but the only twins I personally know are weird. Altho that might have to do with the fact that they were a hive mind, more than they¡¯re the same age. Anyways, yeah, that¡¯s our plan. We don''t know what anyone else will be doing. We kinda hope Fire and Steel get sent to our town. Altho since they¡¯re in a different Admin¡¯s group probably not. It would be cool if Bacon were able to be in our town, too. I haven''t hung out with her yet, but Kimi likes her. And Mika really likes her. Let¡¯s see¡­ We could send an invite to Frog¡¯s group. But they¡¯re all going to be adventurers. I don''t think any of them are capable of settling down. They might be traders, or they might be the defense people in a trade caravan, but they¡¯re really comfortable with spending every night in a new place. Or at least, that¡¯s the impression I got from talking to Octavius. So yeah, that¡¯s our plan. I''m gonna go dream about what my restaurant menu will be. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 12 (3) Dear Diary, So, the Sams are trying to convince everyone in the dungeon to have a party when we get to Floor 60. Since it¡¯s a catgirl floor, we¡¯ll all be able to see each other. ¡­As opposed to normal floors, where there¡¯s a dimensional split or something when multiple parties are on the floor. They don''t want any fighting, no tricks or backstabbing. Just a nice, relaxing mega party. Samuel asked me to give the chef on that Floor, Nyx, a couple easy party food recipes. And he asked Avi for cocktail recipes. Which, of course, we were happy to give. Apparently Samurai and Aya debated a long time about if we should all bring down the poisoned chocolate. Eventually they decided it would be better not to. Since I won''t be there to cook, I don''t really have much to do in preparation. I kinda got used to always needing to prepare for parties. We haven''t really been to a party since getting here. I hope the kobolds are still throwing parties twice a week. I''m sad to be missing them, but I would be sadder to learn that they aren''t having any parties. I haven''t really talked to Nat in a while. Sure, we kinda hang out for a little bit when I get to the floor, but I can''t stay very long. There isn''t time to spend all afternoon cooking, like in the old dungeon. Not really. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. That makes me sad, but we¡¯re almost halfway done with this dungeon. Then we¡¯ll be able to hang out as much as we want. I hope. Anyways, I haven''t written a lot this cycle. We¡¯re already at Floor 40. I''ve been too busy enjoying spending time with Avi again. Oh, Mika is kinda Lily¡¯s friend now? Lily apparently has a very good reason for acting how she¡¯s been acting, and Mika¡­ I wouldn''t say ¡°supports¡± her, but, sympathizes. I guess Y did say something very threatening, and Kimi was just covering for him. Which, yes, Y is scary when he gets mad. I''ve said that. Or, written it. Wait, when she brought it up with Staab, she said Y tried to do something to her. But now the story has changed to Y saying something to her. If I cared about Lily''s feelings and well-being I might ask Kimi what happened. Sadly, I don''t. I would feel bad about choosing a side without hearing all the details, but Lily accused me of cheating on Avi, so she can throw herself into a slime for all I care. Huh. Just realized, she never apologized for that. I don''t think she¡¯s ever apologized for anything she said. Ok, that¡¯s gonna be my stance on things. Until Lily apologizes to me for what she said, I won''t believe anything she says about anyone. Yeah, that seems reasonable. Oh, I need to message Sam and ask if it¡¯s ok to bring the wolves to the party. And then warn them Fire and Steel also have wolves, probably. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 12 (4) Dear Diary, We got to Floor 60! The party is super fun! It¡¯s gonna continue for like the next three days until every player is here. And then someone will decide ways of choosing who gets to push the button. Maybe. Or maybe we¡¯ll all just keep partying until the Director decides we need to go back to doing the dungeon loop thing. I wouldn''t mind that. Oh, it was decided that the dire wolves needed to stay on their Floor. As much as they would have loved this party, some of the players might have been scared by them. I''m sad, but it¡¯s ok. A couple people have tried to charm Athena, the spy catgirl, into giving them the reset button. But she now has a ring that makes her almost completely immune to charm magic. Samurai found it in a loot box and gave it to her. So no one can end the cycle before we¡¯re all ready for it to end! Somehow, in some way that was completely unpredictable and a shock to everyone who knows me, I ended up spending most of this afternoon helping Nyx in the diner. Avi helped too; he showed her how to mix cocktails. Good cocktails, not just putting vodka in orange juice or rum into totally-not-Coca-Cola. Oh, Nyx is the diner owner. I can''t remember if I''ve written that down yet. She¡¯s very serious about cooking. I get the feeling she likes making food that looks good more than tastes good. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Like, I think she would rather die than make Gin¡¯s version of mac and cheese. She knows how to make perfect lattes with lovely designs on the foam. She does things like arrange hamburgers and fries artistically on a plate. And the fries getting a little cold while she arranges them doesn''t bother her. It bothers me, though, so I did most of the cooking while she did all the plating. ¡­We¡¯re in the middle of an all-player party and yet I write about food for five paragraphs. In non-food news! Everyone from Admin 6¡¯s group is here. Frog and Octavius¡¯ parties are here. Fire and Steel got here like two hours ago. Umm¡­ Hash and 9 aren''t here yet. Bacon should get here tomorrow morning, according to Mika. Kimi and Y made fireworks and set them off this evening. I don''t know how, but people figured out that they¡¯re the ones who blew up the sulfur floor on the first cycle, so they¡¯re kinda in hiding now. Apparently dying due to inhaling too much sulfur dioxide is like one of the worst ways to die. At least according to the people who tried to get through the floor after us. They¡­ Yeah, Kimi and Y are not popular at the moment. Except Lily, who looks down on us for finding any enjoyment in anything at all. How dare we. Tomorrow the party will start back up at about noon, so we can sleep in as late as we want. It¡¯s a little past midnight right now, but the party is still going. I was just tired of being on my feet and wanted to sit down and unwind a little. Avi and Mika were preparing some kind of band thing, but he just came back to our room. And is now watching me write. Watching¡­ me¡­ write¡­ very¡­ important¡­ things¡­ as¡­ slowly¡­ as¡­ possible¡­ because¡­ he¡¯s¡­ too¡­ polite¡­ to¡­ ask¡­ me¡­ to¡­ stop¡­ just¡­ so¡­ he¡­ can-Okfine. Goodnightdungeon!
Cycle 12 (Admin 6) Admin 6 watched the screens, tempted to suggest the Admins go down and join the party. ¡°So¡­ What do we do?¡± Admin 4 asked. ¡°We can''t force them to end the cycle. The Director¡¯s doing absolutely nothing about it. It¡¯s up to us to do something, but what?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s come up with a solution so insipid she has to do something else,¡± Admin 2 suggested. ¡°Like what? Kill everyone?¡± Admin 3 asked. ¡°Respawn them all to Floor 55 and have them go back down properly.¡± ¡°No, that would be too harsh,¡± Admin 5 told him. ¡°They¡¯re just enjoying themselves.¡± ¡°Should we reward them somehow?¡± Admin 1 suggested. ¡°Give them¡­ Hell, I don''t know, a puppy?¡± Admin 6 smiled at that idea. ¡°A puppy pet or a puppy that can die from neglect?¡± Admin 5 asked. ¡°It¡¯s an important distinction.¡± ¡°We should give them all a win,¡± Admin 6 said softly. They looked at him. ¡°That¡¯s certainly an insipid solution,¡± Admin 2 agreed. Admin 4 shook his head. ¡°We can''t have a cycle where sixty people win. That¡¯s too insipid.¡± ¡°So claim it counts for multiple cycles,¡± Admin 3 shrugged. ¡°Eight wins per cycle would mean¡­ seven and a half cycles.¡± ¡°How do you propose we accomplish the half-cycle?¡± Admin 2 asked. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Cycle 15 could count for half a cycle,¡± Admin 5 said, stretching her arms. ¡°No,¡± Admin 1 decided. ¡°We say ten people win for six cycles, and advance the timeline into Cycle 19.¡± The group considered it. ¡°Yeah, that sounds like a bare minimum of reasonableness,¡± Admin 4 said. ¡°Who wants to propose it?¡± ¡°Not it,¡± Admin 6 said. ¡°I could have the most perfect idea in the history of perfect ideas and she¡¯d still reject it on the basis that it was my idea.¡± ¡°Excellent point,¡± Admin 1 said. ¡°6, go ahead and suggest literally anything to her, then when she denies it we¡¯ll send the ¡®give everyone a win¡¯ idea. Hopefully that will annoy her enough she¡¯ll do something reasonable.¡± ¡°Ok,¡± Admin 6 shrugged. ¡°I''ll ask if we can go down and join the party.¡± For a few seconds there was dead silence as he typed. ¡°Well¡­ Could we?¡± Admin 5 asked. Admin 3 checked a few screens. ¡°It is physically possible. But we couldn''t go down looking like Admins.¡± Admin 6 glanced over, surprised to find everyone seriously considering it. He hesitated, then cleared his throat. ¡°We¡¯d just need disguises. No one¡¯s ever seen us as fairies, so that¡¯s almost enough. Fade the gold to passably yellow magic and no one would suspect us. We¡¯d just be a group of random lightning users.¡± Admin 1 watched him. ¡°Did anyone in your dungeon ever suspect you?¡± ¡°Two people,¡± Admin 6 admitted. ¡°But they¡¯re both insanely smart and had met me before when I pulled them to the Void to yell at them.¡± Again, silence. ¡°I¡­¡± Admin 2 said slowly, ¡°would like to go to a party.¡± ¡°Same,¡± Admin 4 decided. ¡°Just for a little bit,¡± Admin 5 said. ¡°Like an hour or two. We¡¯ve been working very hard, and deserve a break.¡± Admin 3 nodded. ¡°Yeah. I''ve been sitting here so long I don''t know if my legs still work. Let¡¯s go.¡± ¡°She can''t punish all of us,¡± Admin 1 said thoughtfully. ¡°We agree as a group to go, so the Watchers would side with us should she throw a fit and we complain.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°We¡¯ll go down for a few hours, have some food, alcohol, dance a bit, then come back when we¡¯re tired. And then send the Director a message suggesting everyone get a win.¡± Admin 6 grinned, erasing his half-written message. ¡°Ok. Let¡¯s go.¡± Cycle 12 (5) Dear Diary, The party is still ongoing! All the players are here now, so there are sixty people hanging out and playing games and getting drunk and eating food! Well, sixty-six if you count the catgirls who live here. They¡¯ve been partying, too. Today Avi and Mika set up a music competition thing. Basically they invited everyone who can play an instrument to get up on a platform thing they made and try to play cooler music than them. Some people were really good, but it¡¯s clear Mika and Avi have had practice in, like, the last year. Everyone else knew what they were doing, but they just haven''t played in so long they couldn''t keep up. So yeah, I am officially married to the best drummer in the dungeon. Or, at least the best drummer among the players. But I like saying in the whole dungeon better, and no one can stop me. Other than that, it¡¯s just been good spending time in one place without having to kill anything for a couple days. I think a lot of players needed this break. Oh, Kimi and Y still aren''t exactly liked by a lot of people, but they apologized and promised to never explode a Floor again, so they can leave their room without getting death threats. Not that death threats are taken seriously here. I mean, they¡¯d be killed, and then immediately respawn in the middle of the Floor. Not even a different Floor. This Floor. The Sams set this party up, so they¡¯re kinda in charge of everything. They say tomorrow they¡¯re going to hold eight different types of contests, and the winners of each will get to push the button. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. They aren''t telling anyone what the contests are, so no one can prepare unfairly. Everyone can join all the contests if they want, or stay out of them if they don''t think they have a chance at winning. The catgirls will be the judges. So yeah, the cycle will probably reset tomorrow night. Or maybe day after tomorrow. Either way, I''ll kinda be sad when this cycle is over. It¡¯ll mean going back to crawling through the dungeon. And yeah, I''ll be glad to get to Lex and Tim again, and all our other friends, but that¡¯s¡­ eh. I¡¯d rather be in one place and have all our friends come to us. I''ve already said I miss the simple days when I was a catgirl, and that hasn''t really changed. But now that I''ve had a little vacation, and I''ve had time to hang out with Avi, I¡¯m not as emotional about it. I can last another seventeen cycles here. No worries. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
Announcement to all players: It appears you have all been enjoying yourselves for the past few days on Floor 60. As much as I hate breaking up the fun, life must go on. However, I do not wish to be unfair. Thus, all players will get one win added to their tally. To validate this, I will advance the timeline to be Cycle 19 when you arrive back at Floor 1. You may continue your party until noon tomorrow, at which point I will reset the cycle. As Cycle 15 is to be skipped, I will not be removing any players. By all means, make tonight a night to remember. I will not tolerate such shenanigans in my dungeon again. Director
Cycle 19 (1) Dear Diary, The party ended, and we¡¯re on Cycle 19 now! That¡¯s right, we went straight from Cycle 12 into Cycle 19. ¡°But how did that happen?¡± I don''t hear you ask because you¡¯re a book who can''t talk. Allow me to explain! ¡­Right after I- hold on. Ok, done. We¡¯re in parties of ten this cycle, meaning we¡¯re sharing a cabin with Kimi and Y, and Kimi was trying to determine what type of cloth all the sheets and blankets are by setting them very slightly on fire. I had to watch to make sure she didn''t set everything very much on fire. Apparently all the fabric in here is cotton. Anyways, where was I? Right, the jump in cycles! Well, the Director decided to end the cycle by giving all the players a win! All sixty of us! But that would have thrown the math waaaay off, so she set us forward six cycles. Sixty wins still aren''t possible in six cycles, since only eight people can win per cycle, but it¡¯s close. Or, close enough, at least. Plus it doesn''t interrupt the pattern of what race we are. We¡¯re currently human, same as we would have been if the cycles hadn''t jumped ahead. I think a couple people are a teeny bit sad they didn''t get to participate in whatever contests the Sams thought up. Octavius really wanted to win some kind of strength-based contest, to prove he¡¯s more than just a big magic spell guy. I think Frog¡¯s group tends to put him in the magic user role, and they don''t let him beat things up as much as they could. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡­Admin 4¡¯s group was keeping pace with us, and we decided to call it a night at the same time. So we had dinner together as we decided which group got most of the cabins. After eating, Frog proposed they go down one more Floor, and hopefully there aren''t any players there yet. I don''t think there are. Not that we were going super fast, but I think we¡¯re ahead of the other four groups. Oh, Lily hasn¡¯t spoken a single word all day. She just kinda follows us all from a few paces back, looking all sad and alone. As a party we¡¯ve been fighting through the Floors, and she does help, but reluctantly. And Staab is completely apathetic to her existing. I¡­ kinda feel sorry for her. A little. I mean, sure, she brought this on herself, but surely she¡¯s learned her lesson. It¡¯s been a few cycles where everyone has pretty much shoved it in her face that she¡¯s a jerk and jerks don¡¯t have friends. Maybe I should try talking to her tomorrow. About something like¡­ Like how long until we get to the next catgirl floor or something. Or if we find loot boxes I can tell her that she always gets the prettiest stuff. Because she does. I don''t know, something simple. Hopefully she¡¯ll respond kindly, and we can go back to being people who don''t mind being in the same general area. Not friends, not yet, but the first step in that direction. We¡¯ll see. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Samuel
To: Athena
Subject: (Empty)
Hey, The Director told us no more ''shenanigans¡¯. So no more parties. Big sad.
From: Athena
To: Samuel
Subject: Re:
Perfect. Next cycle you should be stuck on Floor 1 the whole time. Don''t throw a party. Don''t attack, either. Get everyone to agree to turn the Floor into a beach using earth, water and heat magic, and have a relaxing beach day.
Cycle 19 (2) Dear Diary, The Sams can''t message Samantha any more! They used to message her all the time and tell her how things are going here, and she¡¯d give them gossip from our old dungeon, but they¡¯re blocked from messaging her now! I don''t think I''ve ever mentioned that they wrote to her all the time before¡­ Well, they didn''t talk about it with me a whole lot, but sometimes I''d hear them say they were going to settle an argument by asking Samantha¡¯s opinion. Or they¡¯d say they were going to tell Samantha when something exciting happened. So I know they wrote her. And I always knew them staying in contact was a possibility, because if not I¡­ would have pushed harder for Avi to stay behind instead of Samantha. But she told me she was going to message them every day, so she was fine staying behind. But now the Director has blocked all messages going out of the dungeon. Which isn''t fair! I mean, I''m sure they aren''t the only ones who want to write to their old friends! Steel said he sent updates to his brother every cycle, so now his brother might think Steel has forgotten about him! Aya is absolutely, completely certain the Director did it to punish the Sams for setting up the party last cycle. Which does make sense. I''m willing to believe that the Director would want to punish them in some way. But then why not just say ¡°everyone BUT THE SAMS gets a win¡±? There are so many ways to handicap them that doesn''t involve cutting them off from their sister! If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I¡¯m very upset for them. And everyone else who messaged people in their old dungeons. It isn''t fair. No, more than that, it isn''t nice. It¡¯s¡­ mean. I think the Director is kinda just a mean person. I mean, I know she has a lot of stuff to do, and she¡¯s probably under a lot of stress, but that¡¯s no excuse. Plus she called Avi pathetic. And she never thanks me when I leave food for her. I''m gonna stop doing that. If she appreciated it, she would have said something by now. I don''t know, whatever her reasons for blocking communication were, at the least she could have warned everyone. That would have been the polite thing to do. Not just let us all wake up one morning and suddenly we can''t communicate. Sheesh. Anyways, Aya and Kimi and Mika are trying to figure out a way of getting communication back. The Sams are just too upset to think of a solution. My solution would be to ask politely for communication to not be blocked, but¡­ I doubt that would work. In other, much less important news, we¡¯re on the same Floor as Admin 4¡¯s group again. Admin 5¡¯s group is ahead of us, and the other three are behind. I think Admin 2¡¯s group is last. We¡¯re having a good time racing with Admin 4¡¯s group. Bragging when we¡¯re ahead and demanding duels when we¡¯re behind. Oh, Avi and I were almost convinced to not kidnap Lex and Tim, but we compromised on only taking them to the gingerbread people¡¯s floor. So tonight we have pets. But we won''t have them long. I gave them baths earlier so they¡¯ll be super clean and fluffy when they get there, and I need to go brush them now. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 19 (3) Dear Diary, The Director has officially stated, with no room for argument, that inter-dungeon communication is no longer allowed. So yeah. No more talking to anyone from our old dungeons. It just¡­ It sucks that there¡¯s nothing we can do about it. There¡¯s no way of getting around it. A part of me wants to message the Director and tell her she¡¯s being mean, but I¡¯m kinda afraid that she¡¯d reply by doing something really really mean. So I''m just gonna not say anything. We¡¯re on Floor 30, and I made a special dinner for the Sams. Not dessert, because this isn''t the time for dessert. They¡¯re still pretty upset, and don''t know what to do. Aya says she¡¯s just glad the Director jumped us forward six cycles, so there¡¯s only eleven cycles before they get to see their sister again instead of seventeen. Other than that, we¡¯ve finally pulled ahead of Admin 4¡¯s group! Admin 5¡¯s group is still ahead of us, but only by like six floors. I think. We can catch up to them! If we can''t, second place is good, too. And either way, we¡¯ll have done our best. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . ¡°She was supposed to come up with a better plan, not leave us to do shoddy work and then let a group of insane people take the blame,¡± Admin 2 said. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Admin 3 shook his head. ¡°We aren¡¯t doing shoddy work. We¡¯re figuring things out.¡± ¡°Yes, because we¡¯ve asked for help,¡± Admin 2 pointed out. ¡°We were allotted two hours to come up with a temporary plan. Dungeons are tried and true methods of keeping souls alive and occupied for short periods of time. Not the years it¡¯s taken us to finish the world. Your dungeon broke down more than any of ours, you know the plan has flaws.¡± ¡°Still, telling the players ¡®hi, building cities was never in our job descriptions, so the place you¡¯re being sent to is probably going to fall apart within the month. We chose you to be rulers because you¡¯re insane enough people will immediately blame you when it all goes to hell, not noticing everything was flawed to begin with!¡¯ isn¡¯t something I¡¯m willing to do,¡± 3 said. ¡°Because they¡¯d get mad?¡± 2 guessed. ¡°Because that¡¯s admitting we¡¯re not completely omnipotent.¡± Admin 2 took a deep breath. ¡°Look. If they reject the prize, we can suggest good people to take charge. People who are doing a decent job of commanding mob groups. Players who are smart instead of bloodthirsty. Give the world a little more of a fighting chance. After all, if you win, you¡¯ll be in charge of the damned place.¡± Admin 3 looked unconvinced. ¡°Sure, but what do we ask them to say? Just ¡®no thanks¡¯ when the Director asks what city they want?¡± ¡°No,¡± 2 said, glancing around at the Void. ¡°Ask them to put the world¡¯s allotment of bad fortune onto animals. Like how it is on Earth.¡± Admin 3 opened his mouth. Then closed it. He looked away. Then back at 2. ¡°She¡¯ll never accept that.¡± ¡°She won¡¯t have a choice.¡± ¡°She will, she can just declare the winners to be losers and move on to the next group¡­ Which is why you¡¯re getting me on board when my players are fourth in the rankings.¡± Admin 3 paced back and forth, thinking. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll do it. Cycle 29?¡± ¡°28. Give them time to realize their choices are agree or become unknowing martyrs in our names.¡± 3 nodded, then shrugged. ¡°Vive la r¨¦volution.¡± Cycle 19 (4) Dear Diary, Well, I tried being nice to Lily. We¡¯ve held a few brief and civil conversations. I thought things were coming along nicely. Aaaand then today she said I should ¡°let¡± Avi go back to being Via. As if I''m forcing him to be Avi. As if I care at all. She basically insinuated I''m a horrible person who controls my partner against their will. So yeah, I tried being her friend, and I give up. For now, at least. In ten cycles maybe I''ll feel sorry for her again and try to be nice. Because I¡¯m just a nice person, dang it! I just want everyone to be happy and have friends! Even people I don''t like! This whole thing is just frustrating. Iiiiin other news, the Sams have decided to turn the first floor into a beach floor next cycle. The Director said ¡°such shenanigans¡± when she told us to not throw a party again, and a beach day is a completely different type of shenanigan. Their other reasoning is, what more can she do to them? Which¡­ is very sad. But true. I don''t think she can do anything worse than cut them off from Samantha. Unrelated, but I really like the word ¡°shenanigans¡±. It is a very good word. If we get to the new world and have to choose last names, I''m gonna suggest Shenanigans as our last name. If Avi doesn''t like it then I''ll just use it as my middle name. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! It makes as much sense as a name as ¡°Y¡± or ¡°9¡±. Or even ¡°Frog¡± or ¡°Bacon¡±. And as far as last names go, the English ones are usually pretty boring. Just a job or a color, or ¡°Blanks son¡±. ¡°Shenanigans¡± would be a way more interesting last name. I wonder what Avi¡¯s last name was. I never asked. I don''t remember what my last name was, so I doubt he remembers. Oh! Samurai asked around, and it turns out half of us have access to silver magic. Avi (duh), me, the Sams, and Staab. The Sams requested it a few cycles back; they were going to both be silver and also the same gender, and see if anyone could tell them apart. But then they remembered players can see each other¡¯s names and health bars if we focus. So they didn''t use it. Staab said he asked for it back when we were in our old dungeon. He never really liked using magic, he always said it just felt wrong to him. But he was a melee NPC, and he suspects part of that job was a feeling of magic being bad. So he asked the Admin to let him have silver magic, which is all illusions and not real or permanent, to see if he got the bad feelings while using it. He says he did. Less so than with other types of magic, but the feeling was still there. So he only stayed silver one cycle. The point of all this is, silver magic is supposed to be special. So we should all try to get it, then all turn silver on the last cycle to show off how awesome we all are. Tomorrow we¡¯re going to figure out why everyone deserves silver magic, and ask the Admin for it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Admin 6 looked at the nine messages he¡¯d received. They were¡­ certainly something. He knew the Director read all his messages, so he couldn''t respond in the affirmative. In fact, she¡¯d probably prefer he not respond at all. Next to him, Admin 5 stretched and summoned a cup of tea. He slowly smiled. ¡°Hey 5, mind if I use your station for a minute?¡± Cycle 19 (5) Dear Diary, Our Admin wrote me through Admin 5¡¯s¡­ message account thing? I got a message from Admin 5, but the first line said it was Admin 6 writing, so I don''t know. Anyways. He asked me to make apple pie for Admin 1, Gin¡¯s version of mac and cheese for Admin 2, candied peanuts for Admin 3, chocolate cupcakes for Admin 4, and the absolute most epic dessert I can possibly manage for Admin 5. So I have some cooking to do! Oh yeah, and he said that next cycle everyone in the group should have silver magic available, but to please not use it yet. He wrote to me and Y about it, not anyone else. I don''t know why. Maybe his message thing is broken, and he didn''t want to take up too much time on Admin 5¡¯s¡­ computer thing. Do they have computers? I¡¯ve only seen them use screens, like the ones we use to see inventories and our stats and spells and stuff. Which I guess is a type of computer? I don''t know. Anyways, Admin 4¡¯s group is pulling ahead of us. They¡¯re only two Floors ahead, but that¡¯s enough of a lead for us to think we¡¯re probably not going to win. Especially since Admin 5¡¯s group is ahead of them. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. I wish there was some way of learning how many wins everyone has. I mean, we¡¯re all doing our best, but knowing if we can afford to lose a couple times or not would be good. Meanwhile, the Sams¡¯ plans for having a beach party next cycle are gaining popularity. We basically have to convince all the players to not fight for a day or two, assuming we''re told to, and I''m pretty sure everyone has agreed. Except for a couple super edgy people who won''t agree to anything fun cuz it''s against their code or something. But they¡¯re in the minority and can be ignored. Besides, if everyone is having fun and one person decides to ruin it, I think they¡¯ll be the one ruined instead. Oh! The people on Floor 39, the ones who are just blood circulatory systems held together with magic, finally gave me their names! It took long enough¡­ I haven¡¯t been pushing, I just kinda kept mentioning that it would be nice and polite if I knew their names, and they finally let me know! So now I have the names of all the people in the whole dungeon! Well, except for a few players. I have most of the players¡¯ names written down. Including ours, I have¡­ fifty-three names. So only seven to go! They¡¯re mostly in Admin 3¡¯s group; I haven¡¯t talked to them all that much. Seven out of¡­ Well, with the dracoraptors and velociraptors and wolves and cats, I¡¯ve got seven hundred and twenty-six names. I counted Floor 1 as the player¡¯s floor, and wrote in sixty for the number of names. Even though I didn¡¯t have them all yet. Some people were suspicious when I asked their names. Like I¡¯m gonna do some evil magic with it. But that¡¯s silly. I don¡¯t think name magic is a real thing in any of the dungeons. Anyways, it¡¯s getting late and I need sleep! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 19 (6) Dear Diary, Well, Lily was acting dumb today, and I wanted to see if there was anything in my diary like a sign for when she got mean. But then I remembered this is a different book from when I was in our old dungeon. And then I remembered that my old diary was taken by someone. I don¡¯t know, maybe I should write the Admin and ask if he knows what happened to my old diary. Cuz the thought of someone random having it¡­ I don¡¯t like it. It¡¯s my diary. I should know where it is. Although, Mika said a couple of her books went missing. And Gin said a cookbook went missing. So maybe there was just a glitch that poofed some books out of existence. I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m just gonna not think about it. Anyways, we were all talking about what we want to do when the dungeon is over, and Kimi said she wants kids. Lily said there will be laws specifically prohibiting crazy people from reproducing, aaand Kimi tackled her and kinda melted her face off. A little. Until she died and respawned back on Floor 45. Y heartily approved. Staab¡­ I think he¡¯s kinda embarrassed that he ever dated her. Avi and I think Kimi might have gone a little too far, but until I ask her why she blew up I can¡¯t say for sure that she shouldn¡¯t have. In non-Lily news, Samurai says she wants to be a vagabond. Not a merchant or someone whose job needs them to travel, no, just someone who wanders around for the fun of it. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. That does sound¡­ fun. I understand why she¡¯d want to see the whole world. If I were single, I might want that, too. But Avi and I have different plans. Oh, Samuel and Staab have agreed to run a fishery together. They say since we¡¯ll all be neko, and nekos love fish, they¡¯re gonna corner the market on fish in our town and become millionaires. I don''t know if that will happen, but I did promise that I''ll get all the fish for my restaurant from them. Y said he wants to be an alchemist. Or someone who studies magic in a scientific way. Aya said that if we all live in a town together, then she¡¯ll be town guard. She says she likes the exercise of fighting, and keeping everyone safe sounds like a worthwhile job. I agree. Mika I guess hasn''t thought about it at all. She said she¡¯ll have to wait and see, but that being a blacksmith is fun. Oh, before getting her face blown off, Lily said she wants to be a teacher. That¡¯s what she wanted to be back on¡­ Like, before. Y¡¯no. Kimi said she wants to be either a fireman or an evil dictator. Which makes her the only person who said they want to be in a leadership position. The big grand prize for winning the dungeon is supposed to be that everyone in the group gets to be king or queen of their own country. I wonder what will happen if we win then go to the Director and tell her ¡°no thanks¡±. I kinda bet it wouldn''t end well. I''ll have to ask the group what they think tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 19 (7) Dear Diary, Well, I asked about the saying ¡°no thanks¡± if we win, and that¡¯s basically the whole plan. Kimi and Aya said they need to do that, and the prize we need to ask for instead is a world where no one has any bad luck. They said it¡¯s kinda complicated, but basically the losers here will all get super bad luck. That¡¯s not nice, so we need to ask to give the bad luck to slimes and cockroaches instead. I like the idea of slimes having super bad luck. They said they were gonna sit everyone down and tell us about it on Cycle 20, so we¡¯re close enough. I kinda think we should tell the other players, and ask for their help. Kimi and Aya said not to, though. They said we should leave it up to the Admins to talk about it to their players. It¡¯s kinda too big of a thing for us to handle. But now I''m wondering why the top prize is getting our own country in the first place. Maybe players were chosen because they have leadership qualities? Like, I know everyone was given some kind of personality test, and that¡¯s how they chose who to put where. Doesn''t seem like it, though. Like, I love Fire to pieces, but I don''t think she¡¯d be very good at running a kingdom. Steel might be. But Fire should be¡­ I don''t know, she just needs to be loved. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Unless people lied on their personality tests. Or maybe one of the questions was ¡°do you want to run a country¡±, and players are all the people who said yes? But then why the murder-loop dungeons? I don''t know. Maybe I should ask the Admin about it. Altho if I asked about it, I should ask through Admin 5¡¯s message system thing. Since our Admin responded to my last message with her name on it. I kinda just want to write a big long list of random questions and send it off to him. Oh! Speaking of the last time he messaged me, I made all the desserts he asked for except Admin 5¡¯s. I''m gonna make something epic for her next cycle, when hopefully I''ll have more time with a kitchen. I''m thinking of making a tiered tray. Layer one will have ladyfingers, because they¡¯re pretty basic and no one dislikes them. Then if someone is willing to pick the nuts out of the trail mix that¡¯s sold in the shop I¡¯ll make torrone for the second layer. Nat and I tried making it once, but in our old dungeon the only nuts we had were peanuts, and it didn''t end up all that good. But I think I remember how to make it. And if I don''t make it perfect, I''m sure someone here will eat it. Anyways, layer three will be cupcakes. I get the feeling Admin 5 would like lemon cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. I don''t know why. It¡¯s just¡­ a vibe. And then the top layer will be a big cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting. Because I haven''t made any cinnamon rolls in a while, and the Sams were talking about them earlier so I kinda want one. I think that¡¯ll be properly epic. Enough variety to not be boring, at least. Anyways, now that I have that extremely important thing figured out, I''m gonna go sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 20 (1)
Welcome to Cycle 20! This cycle you¡¯ll be doing something new. In each of your rooms there¡¯s a booklet with a variety of logic puzzles in them. The cycle will end when the last person completes their booklet. The eight people with the most correct answers will be the cycle winners. To ensure no one procrastinates, I have set Floor 1 to slowly fill with a poisonous gas. If you die before completing the booklet, the unanswered questions will be counted as incorrect. I wish you all the best of luck, Director
***** Dear Diary, New cycle! We¡¯re elves! And everyone has green magic! Not because we talked about it or anything, it¡¯s just that green magic gives poison resistance and the floor is filling with poison. I guess the Director kinda forgot that we can enter our customization thing as many times as we want while on Floor 1? Cuz she made the floor poisonous to make us work faster, but it does nothing to me. So everyone just went and changed to green magic. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Anyways, this cycle we don''t have to fight anyone! Woo! We have to take a boring test instead! Not woo! Well, Y and Kimi already did theirs, and they said it was fun. They really really hope the Director gives them their scores, cuz they want to see who did better. But to me it kinda looks boring, so I''m putting it off until after the beach party. And yep, tomorrow the beach party begins! Today was spent with everyone who usually has water and earth magic swapping out to turn half the floor into a proper beach. They decided it was perfect at about ten at night, so we¡¯re waiting til tomorrow to start the party. The cycle will end when the last person finishes their test book, so we aren''t worried about it ending until we¡¯re ready for it to end. I spent today cooking. For the party, and the big dessert tower for Admin 5. Bacon joined me, which was fun! Bacon is a cook, not a baker. She very much just throws things into a pan and hopes the combination is yummy. Which it usually is. That¡¯s fine when making nachos, but not fine when making cinnamon rolls, which have yeast in them. Bread yeast is kinda particular. Nothing went wrong, tho. She knows that baking is more of a science than regular cooking, and mostly let me do everything that wasn''t mixing or stirring. Torrone needs like a solid hour of standing there stirring, which is super boring, so I''m glad she was there to help. Oh, Avi was there, too, for part of it. But he decided to do the test except for the last question, so he left when it got boring. But anyways, I like Bacon. She¡¯s funny. She¡¯s kinda a good-natured flirt? Like, not a serious flirt who has to be the center of attention, more someone who knows how to make people feel super interesting and important. Whenever I explained a recipe, 110% of her focus was on me. Which was kinda a little weird. I''m used to people paying attention to about 80% of what I say, max. I mean, I don''t blame them. I do ramble a lot. Half the time not even I''m paying attention to what I''m saying. I think I''m gonna go do a question or two of that test, just so I can say I started it and gave up when I got bored. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 20 (2) Dear Diary, Today was¡­ an interesting day. So, about two thirds of the players are guys. Meaning everyone who happens to be a girl got a lot of attention on the beach. Ok, well, Avi and I kinda made a group with Kimi, Y, Fire and Steel. We all get along and have fun when we¡¯re together. I don''t think Fire has ever worn a bikini before. She didn''t know how to swim, so Kimi made it her mission to teach her. I joined, cuz I''m still very bad at swimming and need practice. Which, obviously, meant we all needed to wear bathing suits. The only bathing suits available for women are bikinis. So yeah. I''ve worn them before, like when the Admin gave us gold bikinis that were insanely OP. Not a big deal. And Kimi¡¯s usual outfit is jeans, bikini armor top, and a zip-up hoodie. I don''t think she¡¯s worn a shirt since we got those things in her shop. As she says, she¡¯s an adult and can wear whatever she pleases. But Fire is used to wearing several layers of baggy clothes, and not having anyone pay any attention to her. So suddenly wearing only a couple strategic fabric triangles and having every guy in a thirty-foot radius looking at her¡­ kinda freaked her out. Kimi and I tried to get her to relax and ignore it, but any time a guy came over she tried to hide behind one of us. Which only drew attention to her more. Steel came over after a while, and I thought that might help, but some guys took that as like¡­ a challenge? Like if they showed they could beat Steel up one of us would fall in love with them instead or something. It was annoying. We gave up after that and came back to our building to play cards. Hopefully tomorrow is better. I mean, we kinda had fun for a little bit in the water. Fire learned how to paddle around on her stomach, so that¡¯s good. Maybe tomorrow people won''t pay as much attention to us and we can teach her more things. In other news, I said I was thinking of asking the Admin a bunch of things, and everyone helped me think of more questions. I know I''m not usually very organized, so I''m gonna write them down here first. That way I can put them in an order and send them off in a way that makes sense. So preemptively, Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Questions for Admin:
Why did you put us all in a dungeon?
Did you just have a dungeon laying around already kinda made and put us in it?
Why was there originally a light blue magic and a dark blue magic?
Why do the players have to kill? If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Did the Director make the first prize our own kingdom because she thinks players will do a good job at ruling?
What¡¯s going on in the other dungeons, now that the players there don''t need to race?
Why is the macguffin in our old dungeon a turtle figurine?
How old is the Director?
How old are you?
Did Admin 5 like her dessert tower?
Does anyone here have allergies?
We¡¯re all in new bodies, so were all chronic illnesses cured?
What about depression or other things caused by chemical imbalances?
Are there any new diseases that began in a dungeon?
What¡¯s the scientific reason we can''t have kids here?
What would happen if someone refused to sleep, but respawned on purpose every time they got to a checkpoint?
There are six Admins, right?
How many Directors are there?
Is there anyone above the Director checking how good of a job she does?
Why do slimes have to be a thing?
Will there be slimes on the world we¡¯re going to after this?
Why did you have to rename us all?
I mean, why couldn''t we have renamed ourselves?
And why couldn¡¯t we have kept our old names?
What¡¯s up with the ceilings, why are they so weird?
Can we get the shape-changing belts here?
Why are the mounts here kinda lame?
Can we get music recorders here?
And cameras?
What level of technology will our next world have?
Who made the aphrodisiac chocolate lake?
Why did they make it?
Did they make anything similar?
Why doesn''t the Director like Avi?
Why did she turn him into a kobold?
Is friendship magic a thing anywhere?
How many different worlds are there?
If we just keep getting reincarnated, do we ever really die?
Is Nat the oldest person here?
Where are all the other old people?
Where are all the kids?
If you turned bad people into goldfish, what did the other Admins do?
When we get to the new world, will we be able to change our races and genders around like we can here, or will they be permanent?
What about magic type?
Will the magic system be the same as it is here?
Why are there no marbles here?
Why the memory erasing?
Will we remember the dungeon and everything when we get to the new world?
Where do the Admins come from?
Where did the Director come from?
Will our group be together in the new world?
How do we all speak English?
Can we get the OP bikini armor for a cycle again?
Cycle 20 (3) Dear Diary, Fire was a lot more comfortable today. We started out all six of us in the water, so there was a bigger group and she wasn''t as noticeable. Then we started playing games, and she forgot all about what she was wearing. After lunch the Sams came over with Frog and Octavius¡¯ group, and they wanted to play volleyball. Oh yeah, the Sams are currently both guys. They¡¯ve changed their names to be Sam69 and Sam420. They¡¯ve both got green magic, so they look exactly the same. Aya said she can tell them apart, but only if she focuses. Not at a glance. So this afternoon it was Avi, Y, Staab and the Sams against Steel and Frog¡¯s group. Kimi, Fire and I were the cheer teams. Kimi cheered for our group, Fire for hers, and I cheered for both. Mostly because Fire isn''t very loud, and needed help. Avi did a really good job. The last time he played a ball game it was basketball, and he did really bad. He looked like he didn''t know what to do, and was scared of the other team cuz they ran at him when he had the ball, and was scared of his team cuz he was doing a bad job. It was overall a very bad experience. But this time, he had a specific area to be in, with clear directions, and the other team was safely on the other side of the net, and he only missed the ball once. So his team was happy with him. Which made him happy, and he had a lot of fun. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Back in our old dungeon, if anyone had asked him to take his shirt off and play a ball game all day, I think he immediately would have said no and left. They would have had to drag him comatose onto the court. Today, the Sams showed up and asked if the guys wanted to join, and he agreed without hesitation. I''m proud of him. He¡¯s grown as a person, and I love that he had fun with his friends today. In other news, Aya wasn''t there today because she was at a hot sauce eating contest with Mika. I don''t know how that whole thing happened, but basically someone wanted a hot dog eating contest but there aren''t hot dogs here. It spiraled until the contest became eating hot sauce. A couple people died, but that¡¯s ok cuz they just respawned in their rooms. In the next world I wonder if it¡¯ll be hard to remember that death is permanent and more than a minor inconvenience. The Admins can change how we feel about things, so maybe they¡¯ll just up our fear of death fifty times. Anyways, tomorrow is gonna be the last beach day. Then we¡¯ll all do our boring tests, and the cycle will be over. I''ll be sad, but it¡¯ll be nice to be almost the only person with green hair again. Seeing everyone with green hair is just a little weird. I bet the Director hates that we easily found a way around what she wanted us to do. That makes me just a little happy. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 20 (4) Admin 6 had fourteen scans running on his recently-completed city. He thought it was good and done, but one of the scans might come up with a glaring issue. ¡°Hey, 6?¡± Admin 5 called, her voice hesitant. ¡°Yeah?¡± he asked, leaning back to look at her. She moved her chair away from the desk. ¡°One of your players messaged you.¡± He blinked. ¡°And the Director sent it to you?¡± ¡°No, the player sent it to my account.¡± She cleared her throat, reading. ¡°Says, ¡®Hi Admin 5. This message is for my admin, Admin 6. He messaged me through your message thing last time, so I don''t know if his is broken or whatever, but I figured I should message him through you now. If you don''t mind, could you show this to him? Thanks¡¯.¡± Admin 6 smirked. ¡°Let me guess, Nikki?¡± ¡°Umm¡­ Yeah. How-¡± ¡°She has a distinct style,¡± 6 said, moving over. He saw the screen and stopped, eyes going wide. ¡°Oh, damn.¡± That got Admin 4 to look over. He whistled in amazement. ¡°Do you think she¡¯s figured out your account is monitored?¡± ¡°No, she¡­¡± Admin 6 paused, thinking. ¡°She looks at what ought to be a twenty-step problem, guesses an answer, and it¡¯s almost always correct. And if it¡¯s incorrect for everyone else, somehow her answer gets flagged as correct anyway.¡± ¡°That sounds dangerous,¡± Admin 2 said, walking over to check the screen. ¡°Holy-¡± Admin 1 followed him over. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ certainly a list of questions. Will you answer?¡± Admin 6 grinned. ¡°That would be illegal. And seeing what she¡¯d do with the information would be¡­¡± ¡°Amusing,¡± 1 filled in, grinning back. 6 turned to 5. ¡°May I borrow your station again?¡± She laughed. ¡°Be my guest.¡± ***** This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. . . . Dear Diary, The Admin replied! He answered all my questions! He didn''t answer them all helpfully, and he didn''t go into a lot of detail, but he did answer them. First off, he said he¡¯d ask about getting us recorders and cameras and the shape-changing belts. But a cycle where we have OP bikini armor again isn''t going to happen. That¡¯s like, the easiest thing to get out of the way. Not the most important. Well, that and when I asked if there was anything similar to the chocolate in the lake he said we should try eating the rocks in the Floor with no gravity. Admin 5 made those Floors, and he said that since he was using her account it was safer if he didn''t tell me why. Which kinda already implies an answer. The most important thing he said was that there will be slimes on the new world, but they won''t be anywhere near where I''m going to live. I am very happy about that. He also said that magic colors will be permanent, but race and gender might be changeable depending on the Admin who gets put in charge. When I asked if the first place prize is getting to run our own kingdom because the Director thinks players will be good rulers, his answer was ¡°absolutely not¡±. Which¡­ is interesting. Why is it the prize if she doesn''t think we¡¯ll do a good job? Maybe I should ask that next¡­ On the sadder side of things, he said all our names were changed to emphasize that we aren''t who we were before. Our old lives are permanently gone, and there¡¯s no way of getting them back. Our memories are being faded away on purpose, but it doesn''t matter. He said when we get to the new world, we¡¯ll have to forget everything that happened here. Which¡­ sucks. But as long as I¡¯m still with Avi I¡¯ll be ok. And he said we¡¯d all stay together, so that¡¯s good. Oh, he said the Director used to be an Admin like three hundred years ago. And she¡¯s close to a thousand years old. No wonder she¡¯s a little out of touch. And no wonder she¡¯s never had pizza before. ¡­I''ve started a lot of sentences with ¡°and¡± this entry. I shouldn''t do that. Anyways, there were a lot more questions, but that about sums up most of them. Of the questions I had, at least. Today was our last beach day, and it had more of a party vibe than before. We had plenty of time to relax and play, so today was for dancing and partying. It was fun, but I''m tired now. Tomorrow I have to finish the stupid logic test, so I should get some sleep. I just wanted to write about the Admin¡¯s letter before I forget about it. I guess, since we¡¯re all going to finish the test tomorrow, this will be my last entry this cycle. Unless someone decides to not finish. Or is too dumb to be able to finish. But, come to think of it, no one said we couldn''t share answers, and Kimi''s finished hers already... I wonder if it would be illegal or whatever to borrow her book... We''ll just have to see! Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 21 (1) Avi felt the cycle reset and found himself back in his room. The cycle message popped up, explaining that the parties would have to be of five people, all from the same group. Also, food magic had been upgraded. That would make Nikki excited. He waved the screen away, then waved away the customization prompt. He glanced at himself in the mirror, taking in the silver-scaled half-dragon looking back. Avi assumed he¡¯d be staying behind with Nikki and Kimi for Y¡¯s sake, and wondered who the fifth person would be. Unless Y felt up to traveling through the dungeon. They might be able to go slow. Avi walked out of his room and went to Nikki¡¯s room. He knocked before opening the door, and found her staring in horror at a screen he couldn''t see. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he asked, walking in. Nikki burst into tears, throwing her arms around his neck to sob into his chest. Avi held her up, almost panicking himself. ¡°Nikki, what¡­¡± ¡°Whoa,¡± Kimi said, stopping in the doorway. ¡°What happened?¡± Nikki turned to look at her, tears streaming down her face. ¡°She took my food away!¡± ***** . . . Dear Diary, New cycle. We¡¯re half-dragons. Everyone is back to their normal colors. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The Director said that since I''m a player I''m not supposed to have access to all the food. So she took it away. I¡­ Goodnight, dungeon . . . Admin 6 stared at the wall, tapping his teeth on the rim of his glass. ¡°Wait. Waitwaitwait,¡± Admin 5 said. ¡°The Director took away Nikki¡¯s food ingredients? So no more cupcakes?¡± ¡°Yup,¡± he muttered. ¡°No more food from her at all, I''d assume,¡± Admin 2 said, frowning. Admin 5 was nearly hyperventilating. ¡°I don''t even know what those white things were, but I need more of them! And now the person who makes them has no access to food?!¡± ¡°Nope,¡± 6 said. 4 took a deep breath. ¡°It¡­ is reasonable.¡± Admin 5 spun to turn a death glare on him. ¡°You shut your damn mouth.¡± ¡°She¡¯s a player; players shouldn''t be able to access raw ingredients now that they have magical potency,¡± Admin 4 said carefully, putting himself at serious risk of dismemberment. ¡°I don''t know,¡± 3 shrugged. ¡°It was good food.¡± That got everyone to stop. They looked at him. ¡°Was that a compliment?¡± Admin 1 asked. ¡°With no qualifiers? No sense of someone forcing you to say something nice?¡± 3 rolled his eyes. ¡°You act like I hate everything.¡± ¡°You do hate everything,¡± Admin 2 pointed out. ¡°Oh go to hell,¡± Admin 3 told him, summoning a soda. ¡°All I said was her food was good. Not praising it to the hilt. Not calling it some kind of ambrosia. Just good.¡± There was another pause. Admin 6 knew the rules, even if the one that might apply here had never been invoked. If they all agreed Nikki should get her food back, the Director would have to return it. A formal statement, signed by the six of them, would overrule any decision she made. ¡°Are you by any chance sad you¡¯ll never be able to eat her food again?¡± Admin 6 asked 3. ¡°Sure,¡± he said, and drained his glass. ¡°Real torn up about it.¡± Admin 5 moved closer to 4. ¡°You agree that this is bad, right?¡± Admin 4 scooted his chair back. ¡°Uhh¡­ Yes. I am in full agreement.¡± She clapped her hands. ¡°Excellent! So all six of us agree the player known as Nikki should get access to her food ingredients back! 1, write the petition.¡± Admin 1 smiled, summoning a pen and paper. Cycle 21 (2) Dear Diary, The Director upgraded food magic. Ingredients now have magical properties, not just dishes. Which I would be really excited about, normally. But she took away my access to the diner food inventory. I now can purchase granola bars and trail mix and jerky and a couple other things. And that¡¯s it. Avi has more food than I do now, cuz he still has sushi. Which isn¡¯t fair. I just¡­ I don''t know. Goodnight, Dungeon . . . ***** ¡°Has she eaten at all?¡± Kimi asked, standing in the inn hallway with Avi and Y. Avi shook his head. ¡°She says it¡¯s not worth it.¡± ¡°Well, she can''t die of starvation here,¡± Y said thoughtfully. ¡°Still¡­ Maybe you should take her some peppermint tea?¡± Kimi tried, looking back at Avi. ¡°Dehydration would be bad, even if she doesn''t die.¡± Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Maybe you should,¡± he said nervously. ¡°I- I told her I still have sushi available and she got mad at me.¡± They looked at the door. Y moved to push his glasses up, but his hand stopped with a tremor halfway to his draconian face. He cleared his throat instead. ¡°She¡¯s acting like being a chef was her entire personality.¡± ¡°Should I¡­ tell her it¡¯s not?¡± Avi tried. ¡°Nah, just remind her that being in love with you is the other half of her personality,¡± Kimi said, hitting him gently on the shoulder. ¡°Not half,¡± Y corrected. ¡°I''d say third. A desire to hug fluffy animals takes up quite a bit.¡± ¡°The point being,¡± Kimi said, ¡°even without food she¡¯s still our Nikki.¡± Y smiled. ¡°She is still a valuable member of my harem.¡± Kimi rolled her eyes, but a part of her was glad Y could even make jokes. Avi nodded slowly. ¡°I''ll tell her that. If- If nothing else works.¡± ¡°Message me if you need me,¡± Kimi told him. ¡°I''ll bring over tea.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± he said softly, and turned towards the door. Kimi took Y¡¯s hand, and they went down the stairs, leaving Avi to go into the room alone. They walked towards Floor 10¡¯s diner, Kimi feeling odd twitches in Y¡¯s fingers. ¡°Y, if you want to stop here-¡± ¡°No,¡± he snapped, then flinched and looked at her apologetically. ¡°Sorry. I''ll be fine. Moving through floors is a good distraction. I don''t want to spend another cycle just¡­ sitting around waiting for it to be over. I can''t justify holding everyone back. I¡­ will be fine.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not holding us back,¡± Kimi said gently. ¡°Nikki won''t care, Avi will understand, and Mika won''t mind.¡± He stopped, his grip on her hand tightening. ¡°I have to prove to myself I can do this. That I¡¯m- That I''m strong enough to do this. We''ll only be half-dragons one more time. If I can''t go through one cycle like this, that just shows how pathetic I am.¡± ¡°Y-¡± ¡°Kim, please.¡± She watched him for a few seconds before shaking her head. ¡°Generic comments of support.¡± ¡°Basic gratitude words,¡± he replied. ¡°Nonspecific semi-promise of assistance,¡± she added. He finally smiled as they started walking again. ¡°Inarticulate sound of appreciation.¡± Cycle 21 (3)
From: The Director
To: All Admins
Subject: Petition
I have read your petition to return Player 606¡¯s illegal access to a diner¡¯s food inventory. Against my better judgment, I shall allow it. As I am benevolent, I shall also return Player 610¡¯s illegal access to food. Upon cycle reset, the inventory access shall be returned to them. Thank you for letting me know of your concern. Director
***** Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. . . . Dear Diary, Maybe this is a good thing. I''ve become reliant on food to get through the dungeon. So I need to learn how to get through without it. It¡¯s a learning experience. Showing up without treats for Lex and Tim was¡­ hard. It almost made me cry. But I didn''t. I don''t know what I''ll do when we get to the wolves and I don''t have any meatballs. Or when we get to the dracoraptors and I don''t have anything blackberry to give them. I won''t even have a block of cheese for Charlie! They¡¯re gonna eat us for sure. And I''ll deserve it. Oh well. Goodnight, Dungeon
Cycle 21 (Y) Y stared into the campfire between Floors 15 and 16, absently picking at the scales on his hands. They¡¯d spent much less time than usual talking to Jenny, mostly because Nikki had sniffled about not having any sort of pastry the whole time they were there. It had been¡­ sad. Kimi put her hand over his. ¡°Stop.¡± Avi, on Y¡¯s other side, looked over. He saw Y¡¯s hands and grimaced. Y curled his fingers in, hiding the missing and broken scales. He turned to Avi before either could give him another lecture on why he should leave his scales be. ¡°Avi, if you don''t mind, if you trust me, would you allow me to speak to Nik?¡± he asked. Avi blinked. ¡°I¡­¡± He glanced at the cabin Nikki hadn''t come out of since the party had rented it. ¡°I guess? What will you say?¡± ¡°I''ll simply explain she¡¯s more than a chef,¡± Y shrugged, getting to his feet. His skin crawled at the movement. He had no idea how he¡¯d survived so long as a kobold. ¡°I tried that,¡± Avi said, almost pouting. Y smiled, hyperaware of the scales moving on his face but forcibly keeping his mind on track. ¡°We have different ways of saying things.¡± ¡°Y,¡± Kimi called as he stepped towards the cabin. ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Do not hurt my sister.¡± He hesitated, almost pointing out the loopholes she¡¯d given him, but decided that wouldn''t be wise. Instead he bowed. ¡°I would never.¡± He smiled again and continued on into the dark cabin. Nikki was curled up on her bunk, facing the wall. She glanced over when the door opened, but let her head drop back down when she saw who it was. Y sat down on the bunk opposite her and rolled his sleeves up. ¡°What are you?¡± She turned just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°What are you?¡± Her head dropped again. ¡°I don''t know any more.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°I''m a neko,¡± Y said, sliding his claws under a scale on his arm. He tore it out, wincing slightly. ¡°Well, not right now,¡± Nikki muttered. ¡°Right now we¡¯re half-dragons.¡± ¡°No,¡± he said calmly, tearing off another scale. ¡°Under the scales there¡¯s skin. If I remove enough of them I''m sure I¡¯ll look like myself again.¡± He pried another scale out, testing if going slowly would release less blood. It didn''t. Nikki turned. ¡°That¡¯s not how it wowhoawhat are you doing?¡± ¡°I hate scales,¡± Y said, peeling another off his arm. ¡°I am not a half-dragon.¡± ¡°Y, stop,¡± she ordered, putting her feet on the floor. ¡°They¡¯re made of the same stuff as fingernails and claws,¡± he said, prying up another scale. He held it up and looked at the shining black thing before placing it with the others. ¡°And whale baleen, I suppose.¡± ¡°Y.¡± ¡°Of course, I''m not just a neko.¡± He grimaced as two came out at once. ¡°I''m a chemist. I''m almost as good at logic puzzles as my wife. I''m the product of three distinct cultures. I''m someone who wears glasses for the aesthetic.¡± He tore off another scale, his fingers now slick with blood. ¡°And I''m going to need help removing the wings when my arms are clean. Because I''m not a half-dragon.¡± ¡°No, Y, absolutely not,¡± Nikki said, standing. He slid a claw under the next scale and looked her in the eyes. ¡°What are you?¡± ¡°I''m- Your friend!¡± she snapped. ¡°I''m extremely worried about your mental health! I''m impressed at your pain tolerance, but I''m worried about the amount of blood dripping onto the floor!¡± ¡°Is that all?¡± ¡°I''m someone with the Sleep spell and healing magic, and I will use them!¡± Y smiled, the movement feeling wrong on a draconic snout. ¡°So you¡¯re not just a chef with no ingredients?¡± ¡°Y, if you¡¯re doing this just to prove a point-¡± ¡°Quite the reverse; I''m using the point as an excuse,¡± he said, clawing off another group of scales. He clenched his teeth, glaring at his arm. ¡°They feel like ticks, scraping against each other every time I move. Pain is better than the constant crawling sensation. I promised Kim I wouldn''t remove the ones on my face again, but¡­¡± He ripped another scale from his arm and looked at Nikki. ¡°How are you not driven insane?¡± She cast a minor healing spell, just enough to stop the bleeding. ¡°Scales give a solid boost to armor.¡± ¡°Ah. You focus on their benefit more than their annoyance. Of course you do.¡± ¡°And they look cool.¡± ¡°I disagree.¡± ¡°I''m¡­ gonna go get Kimi.¡± ¡°Please don''t.¡± ¡°Then stop.¡± Y paused, looking over his half-descaled arm. ¡°Seems a shame to leave a job unfinished.¡± Nikki cast Sleep on him. Cycle 21 (4) Dear Diary, Tonight when we got to the catgirl floor I asked the diner owner for a bunch of food and ingredients, and she said no problem. Tomorrow morning she¡¯ll have a big pack of food ready for me. She¡¯s even gonna make the blackberry cheese sauce for the dracoraptors! So they won''t eat us! Not being eaten by the dracoraptors is always a good thing. I haven''t written much this cycle, I''m sorry. I was so sad about losing personal access to food that I didn''t even think about the other places I could get food! Well, I''m still not happy about losing my inventory of absolutely everything. Especially not since the ingredients are magic now, meaning there''s a whole bunch of things I need to try. But it¡¯s not gonna kill me or anything. And when we get down to Nat and the other kobolds we can still trade notes and recipes and stuff. I''ll be fine. Oh, this cycle I''m in a party with Avi, Mika, Kimi and Y. Mika and Kimi are doing most of the fighting, when fighting needs to be done. Yes, Y agreed to become a half-dragon and come with us. It is not going well. Avi tried to use an illusion to make him look like a neko, but that just made things waaaay worse. I¡¯m glad Mika is with us this cycle. Between me being all depressed and Y being extra crazy, the party needs someone stable and sane to balance everything out. And Mika is kinda Avi¡¯s best friend, so she¡¯s good to have around. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Better than anyone else would be, at least. Maybe Staab would have been ok? Or Samuel. I don''t think Samurai or Aya would have been much help, and Lily would have just made things worse. Anyways, I don''t really know what¡¯s going on this cycle. I''ve been too much in my own head, and I need to break out. It¡¯s not good to just be thinking about my own problems. Maybe I should message Samurai and ask for some gossip. Or Octavius, since his gossip will be about people I''m not really friends with, so I won''t get upset about anything. But Samurai will have gossip about Lily¡­ Well, it¡¯s not like messages cost anything. I could message both of them! I might be able to message Hash, too, I just need to know her player number. Which is easy to figure out. First number is always group number, then it lists us alphabetically. So I bet she¡¯s 502 or 503. I''m 606, which in my opinion is a good number. Ok, I''m gonna go write messages asking for gossip! Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . .
From: Admin 5
To: Group 6
Subject: Message from Admin 6
Hey, You all have illusion magic now. I know you were going to save it for some fancy thing on the last cycle, but I''d like to annoy the Director. If you don''t mind, would all of you switch to using silver magic next cycle? Thanks, Admin 6
Cycle 21 (5) Dear Diary, Wow I got a lot of gossip today. I think some people just needed a neutral third party to vent to. Even the Admin messaged me, without me needing to ask! Oh yeah! He messaged everyone in the group, still using Admin 5¡¯s message thing, and told us all to switch to silver magic next cycle. Which I¡¯d be happy to do, but then he said to do it specifically to annoy the Director. I don''t know, I''d rather not annoy the person who kinda controls everything? But since the Admin, who is kinda in control of us wants us to¡­ I¡¯ll have to think about it. Plus next cycle we¡¯ll be neko, and I want to have my green magic for that! Maybe I''ll suggest we all become silver cycle after next, when we¡¯re hobgoblins. I wouldn''t mind being a silver hobgoblin. In other news, Octavius wrote me almost two thousand words¡¯ worth of ranting about everyone in his group. Not just his party, he really didn''t have a whole lot to say about them comparatively, no, his whole group. He commented a lot on Fire¡¯s creepiness, which I didn''t think was necessary, but he was mostly asking if he was right to think it¡¯s creepy. And a couple of things he mentioned are kinda¡­ odd. I''ll have to give him a good reply to that section. But apparently Kerav picks his nose and thinks no one has noticed. Frog is getting more micromanaging-y as a leader, which I agree would be annoying. And he¡¯s pretty sure Ringo uses charm magic on players, which is just bad all over. Octavius doesn''t have proof, tho. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. There are two girls in their group other than Fire, and he just haaaates them. I get the impression they¡¯re kinda like Lily. Well, that¡¯s the impression I got from five paragraphs written by one guy. I haven''t met them really, so I don''t have a truly informed opinion. Octavius thinks Steel is super boring. Which, he isn''t. The problem is that Steel is usually with Fire, who is the opposite of boring. So he¡¯s just comparatively boring. The other two people in his group I guess argue a lot for fun? Octavius has almost a full essay on why arguing for fun is bad. I do agree with that. Anyways, that ended his email. Hash wrote a lot about one person, Fishy. Apparently this Fishy is just all kinds of crazy. Hash used a lot of slang that I don''t think I''ve ever heard before? Or at least I don''t remember hearing it. So I didn''t really understand a lot of what she said. But I''m glad she got it off her chest. Whatever it is. Aaaand that leads me to Samurai¡¯s email. Lily is making a nuisance of herself. She keeps trying to flirt with people who don''t want her to flirt with them. Samuel has decided his goal is to get Lily to accidentally kiss Samurai. That would upset Lily, since she¡¯s kinda uptight about that sort of thing. Samurai isn''t sure how she¡¯d feel about it, though. Because tricking someone into kissing someone they don''t want to kiss is wrong. Even if that person kinda deserves it. I told Samurai to keep me updated. We¡¯ll see what happens. Other than that there isn''t much happening in their group. Which is to be expected, since the Sams are focused on the main drama-maker. If Lily wasn''t around I''m sure they would be doing something dramatic on their own. So yeah, that¡¯s about it. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 21 (6) Dear Diary, Today Y kinda¡­ broke. We got to the floor with the dire wolves, and Floofles immediately went to him wanting treats and pets. Something about hugging a big, fluffy doggo who was happy to see him made Y¡¯s ¡°everything is fine, honest¡± mask shatter. He didn''t go supervillain insane, which is what I kinda thought would happen. Instead it just looked like all the energy was drained from him. Like he was a puppet, and someone cut the strings. He kept repeating that he didn''t want to be here any more. It was kinda hard to watch. But Kimi kept looking at me, like she was checking to make sure I didn''t leave her alone, so I stayed. Mika didn''t stay. She¡¯s not as close to them as we are, so it¡¯s probably better she left. Avi stayed. He messaged the Admin, asking if we could send Y and Kimi back to Floor 1. And after a while¡­ the answer was no. We either all had to stay, or all had to go. It sucks, since we¡¯re trying to get as many wins as we can, but there wasn''t really an option. If winning breaks us, it isn''t worth it. So we¡¯re back on Floor 1. We¡¯re all neko again, and I''ll admit that being a catgirl does feel better than being a half-dragon. Mika says she doesn''t mind. She¡¯s been playing music all evening, so at least she¡¯s having fun. Or, I assume she¡¯s having fun. Avi joined her like an hour ago, and I¡¯m pretty sure the song they¡¯re practicing is a new one. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Kimi was with Y, but he fell asleep. Then she came down and helped me cook dinner. She¡¯s never done that before. Sure, she''s watched me cook, but other than hand me things from the other side of the kitchen she¡¯s never really offered to help. And what did we make? Fish burgers. I got a bunch of sushi from Avi and separated it all out to get the fish, then squished the pieces into patties and fried them. They were ok. If I had any of a dozen extra ingredients I know I could have made something way better. But neko tastebuds love fish, so it¡¯s not like it could even be bad. Oh, and I baked the seaweed into chip kinda things. They weren''t my favorite, but Mika said she really liked them. So there¡¯s that. Anyways, I let Samurai know and cheered them on to get to the end super fast. Even if the party I''m in can''t win, there¡¯s still half our group in the running. I still have people to cheer for. I don''t know, this cycle has been hard. I wish, I really wish, I could spend a day with Nat. Just cook, and talk, and have coffee and relax¡­ It would be nice. I need a grandma to talk to. I need someone with an outside perspective to tell me it¡¯ll all be ok. I mean, I know we only have nine cycles left, and then we get out of the dungeon. At most each cycle has taken fifteen days, so that¡¯s only like¡­ 45¡­ 90¡­ 135¡­ It¡¯s like four and a half months. That¡¯s all. That¡¯s not too bad! Four and a half months, and we¡¯ll be in our new home. Four and a half months. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 21 (7) Dear Diary, We spent today playing poker. It was fun! We haven''t spent a day just hanging out playing cards in forever. Mika is better at the game, but Kimi¡¯s unreadable poker face continues to be unreadable. Even Y couldn''t always guess when she was bluffing. We all won a decent number of hands, so no one got depressed about losing. For chips we used paper strips with numbers drawn on them. Before playing we spent like an hour making the ¡°money¡± as fancy as we could manage. It was good. Today was a good day. Y is almost back to normal. He¡­ He has a few new scars on his fingers, but it¡¯s not too noticeable. I wouldn''t have noticed if he hadn''t acted self-conscious about his hands. Which is kinda ironic. I¡¯m still sad about losing all my food. I don''t think that¡¯ll change any time soon. But it doesn''t mean I can''t cook with the things everyone else has. So it¡¯s ok. Avi kinda suggested I take a vacation from cooking. I understand where he was coming from, saying that I don''t need to make everyone three meals a day. But that¡¯s like¡­ like taking a vacation from breathing! What else am I supposed to do? Die? Being a chef is my job, class, and hobby! I can''t just not cook. If Mika had told me that, I¡¯d assume she just had a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am. Somehow. But Avi saying it makes it more¡­ He knows what suggesting I stop cooking means. He wouldn''t say something like that unless he really thought I should. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Which I appreciate. But I can''t. Even if it¡¯s just rearranging sushi into different shapes, I have to do something. I won''t say my self-worth is tied to giving people food, but it''s close. Anyways, I need to write to Samurai for more gossip. Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . Athena read and re-read her letter to Admin 6, making improvements each time. Samuel had told her all messages to him went through the Director, so this should stir the pot. Even if Sam lied for some reason, it should get a reaction. She¡¯d held off on using this card, wanting to find a better one, but nothing had appeared. Athena didn''t know what the consequences would be, but they would be something.
From: Athena
To: Admin 6
Subject: Thank you
Hello! I just wanted to say thank you for helping make the party three cycles ago an amazing event. I appreciate having an Admin around who knows the importance of fun and relaxation. Not like Admin 3 and the Director, who have sticks so far up their asses they probably wouldn''t know fun if it slapped them in the face. Seriously, what is their deal? Especially the Director, yikes. Like, at least Admin 3 appreciated the alcohol. Anyway, let me know if you want to throw another party sometime! Love, Athena
She hit Send and sat back, smiling in the darkness. Now all she had to do was wait. Cycle 21 (8) Admin 6 was unceremoniously teleported into the Director¡¯s office without warning. Again. This time there wasn''t a chef or table full of cupcakes to greet him. The Director was alone, and her desk was sadly lacking in desserts. ¡°How are you communicating with people in the dungeon?¡± she asked. Admin 6 tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. The Director sent a screen to him. ¡°She sent it to you directly instead of through whatever other means you¡¯ve discovered.¡± He read the message from Athena, his confusion turning real. She implied he helped set up the player¡¯s party? Athena wasn''t even one of his catgirls. ¡°Have you gone into the dungeon?¡± the Director asked. He looked away from the screen, shaking his head. ¡°Have you brought anyone out?¡± Again, he shook his head. ¡°I will be verifying that on my own,¡± she decided. ¡°I will also be going through the catgirl¡¯s messages with a fine-toothed comb. I will be monitoring her to see how you¡¯ve been communicating.¡± Admin 6 shrugged. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°That doesn''t worry you?¡± she asked. With all honesty, he shook his head. The Director huffed. ¡°I¡¯ll message Athena, then. I''m sure she¡¯ll be more communicative.¡± For some reason Admin 6 wanted to stick his tongue out at her. He restrained himself, barely. The Director sent him back to the other Admins. He took his seat, silently wishing Athena luck with her plan. Whatever it was. ***** Dear Diary, I suspect tomorrow the cycle will reset. Samurai says they¡¯re on Floor 56, and at least one party is ahead of them. So yeah, it¡¯s almost over. Samurai also said that Lily has given up flirting. She got the message and is now just grumbly and unhelpful. Progress? At least nothing bad happened to anyone. That I know of. Oh, Hash wrote me again, this time about some other person in her party who¡¯s been annoying her. I kinda wonder if she¡¯s going to eventually write me about everyone. Not that I¡¯d mind, I did ask for it, after all. It¡¯d be kinda funny. I should look over the answers that the Admin gave me to all my questions again. I kinda got distracted and never, like, thought about them a whole lot. Other than the name thing, which is sad. I wonder if we¡¯ll get new names when we leave the dungeon, too. I mean, we won¡¯t ever come back here, and everything will be super different, so maybe? But there seems to be a baseline laziness with all the Admins. Like, they only fix things with players or NPCs when it becomes a personal inconvenience to them. Or if they think it¡¯d be amusing. The only person who has done things to be mean is the Director. For everyone else, being mean would just take too much effort. I wonder why she¡¯s mean. What happened in her life to make her kinda hate people. But then I guess Lily is kinda the same way. Lily is mean because she wants to be the center of the universe and wants everyone to think she¡¯s the best, and is upset that people are happy without her approval. Maybe the Director¡¯s just upset people have opinions that don¡¯t align with hers. In which case she should get over it. I¡¯m going to be happy even without her approval. Just to spite her. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 22 (1) Dear Diary, New cycle! AND!!! I GOT MY FOOD BACK!!!!! There wasn¡¯t any explanation or anything, but I opened my inventory and all the food was there!!! And! We¡¯re in parties of two, so I get to spend this cycle just me and Avi! And and! We¡¯re nekos, so that¡¯s great! And and and and and! Since the Admin asked, we¡¯re all silver, so I have illusion magic this cycle! AND! ¡­Ok, yeah, I think that¡¯s about it. I¡¯ll stop with the ands. They kinda got away from me there¡­ I¡¯m just excited about everything! Life is good again. I have food, I have a wonderful husband, I have fuzzy cat ears, and I have fancy magic. What could be better? I will admit, some people look better with silver hair than others. I think it suits Aya worst. She looks about twenty years older somehow. And Kimi doesn¡¯t really look good with silver hair, it¡¯s the wrong¡­ tone or something. Y, on the other hand, looks¡­ dashing? Elegant? I don¡¯t know. For once he doesn¡¯t look like there¡¯s something fundamentally wrong with him. Altho it might be that the eye that¡¯s usually black is silver now, so he¡¯s got one silver eye and one blue, which isn¡¯t a noticeable difference. His eyes being extremely different colors did add to the weirdness. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. But the person who looks the absolute best is Mika. I think she¡¯s changing it slightly with a spell, but her hair is truly a shimmering silver. Everyone else¡¯s ¡°silver¡± hair just looks grey to me. It¡¯s¡­ fine. And yes, I still think grey and white hair should be reserved for old people. If I were in charge of everything, I¡¯d have Avi¡¯s hair be black. Or literally any other color. But I¡¯m not, and he can have any color hair he chooses. He absolutely knows my opinions. When we got to Floor 2 he made fun of me for how horrified I must be at all my friends having ¡°old people hair¡±. He said I should trade in my bonk stick for a cane, cuz I¡¯ve got grey hair so I must be old and decrepit. He asked if we could have prune juice with lunch. Oh, the Sams are together, Kimi and Y are together, Aya is with Staab, and Mika is with Lily. The Admin asked us to use silver magic this cycle to annoy the Director, but I don¡¯t know if she¡¯s noticed yet. I don¡¯t know what will happen when she notices. Like, will we even know? I think the other groups all noticed, though. We were getting a lot of looks as we left the first Floor. Steel messaged Avi asking if there was something special going on. I think he answered that we¡¯re all silver because we can be. Anyways, this should be a good cycle. I can cook again, so I¡¯m gonna be trying out the new food magic! So far all I¡¯ve discovered is that the complete dishes, like hamburgers and pizza, don¡¯t do anything different. But adding extra tomatoes and taking tomatoes away does change the magic very slightly. So yeah, experimentation is in my future! ¡­I¡¯ve also got to remember to try eating a rock in the Floor with no gravity. Altho that might just have been the Admin trolling. We¡¯ll see. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 22 (2) The Director frowned, going through the catgirl¡¯s messages again. As far as she could tell, the message she caught going to Admin 6 was the first message Athena had ever sent to an Admin. Any Admin. Athena had messaged every mob and NPC in the dungeon, but only a handful of people had more than five messages sent to them. The only player she¡¯d messaged was Samuel, one of Admin 6¡¯s group. That was obviously the connection, but the Director didn''t have the time nor patience to read through dozens of multi-paragraph messages that mostly consisted of outrageous, borderline erotic flirting. So she moved on to Samuel¡¯s messages. She found no messages from him to Admin 6. Or any other Admin. The only message to him from Admin 6 was the introductory message. The Director glared at her screens. She would not give up. ***** Dear Diary, I now know that Avi trusts me to the point that he will lick a rock if I ask him to. Or at least he did before today. I''m not sure¡­ Nah, he''d probably still lick a rock if I asked him to. Just not rocks that came from Admin 5. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I never did drugs. Thus, I don''t know which drug makes people super hyper and twitchy and talkative. Cocaine? I think it¡¯s cocaine. Yeah, I''m pretty sure the rocks in the no-gravity Floor are made of solid cocaine. I mean, they taste like salty burnt plastic, but who knows. Today was a very interesting day. I hope I don''t get addicted or anything. That might be bad. Altho if they were addictive, I think Admin 5 would have had a lot of problems on her hands, so she probably took that side effect out. Or all of the after effects. I mean, the crash was real, but I don''t feel depressed or a strong desire to try it again. So I guess she removed the after effects. In any case, the high only lasted like fifteen minutes. Thankfully the Floor after the drug rocks floor only has wooly mammoths on it. They¡¯re aggressive, and have mostly resisted our attempts to befriend them, but today we managed to climb on top of one and¡­ uhh¡­ Look, at the time, playing strip thumb wars on top of a giant hairy elephant thing made perfect sense. I¡­ I don''t know. Anyways, after crashing for half an hour or so we continued on as normal. That''s the most interesting thing to have happened today. I didn''t keep any of the rocks, so I can''t try to put them in any food or ask other people to eat them. But I did write Samurai and Kimi and tell them about it. They¡¯ll probably be very interested in trying the rocks next cycle. The second most interesting thing to have happened was Admin 5 writing me to ask if I could make more torrone for her. And anything else I happened to want to make. So I asked if she had any suggestions on how to improve the torrone, cuz that was my first time making it without Nat, and also what types of desserts she likes. She asked if I could make puff pastry, and make like eclairs or macarons or something. Which I probably can, but I haven''t yet. The main problem with macarons is, they¡¯re made with almond flour. They also aren''t puff pastries, but I won''t mention that to her. I have access to almonds, but not almond flour. So making almond flour will be the first very long step. Unless she somehow gets almond flour for me. We¡¯ll have to see if she can tomorrow. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 22 (3) Dear Diary, Kimi is mad at me for not having saved any of the drug rocks. Not serious mad, more ¡°dang it¡± mad. I think she was more upset about having spent twenty-two cycles not knowing that the cocaine rocks existed than anything. Anyways, Admin 5 said she can''t transport anything into the dungeon, so she can''t just give me almond flour. But she said she can offer rewards to the people on her floors if they want to spend a couple hours making almond flour. So as soon as I write out instructions on how to make almond flour instead of just getting smashed almond mush, I should have a couple people give it to me. Also, I found out I''m apparently kinda famous. She asked her NPCs if they know who ¡°Nikki, the chef¡± is, and they were all like ¡°yeah, duh¡±. It feels good to be recognized. I mean, I know everyone kinda recognizes me, but I thought they recognized the food more than anything. Like they recognized me because I had food, but without it they might not. Oh, so we¡¯re all silver this cycle. Silver has illusion magic. It¡¯s been a little hard getting used to how to cast illusions, but Avi is a good teacher. I can almost conjure anything I imagine in under ten seconds. Although I discovered my imagination is lacking. Like, Avi can wave his hands and suddenly we¡¯re surrounded by flying, detailed butterflies. The most I can do is single-color butterflies that kinda¡­ twitch. Like a very low frame rate video. Or maybe zombie butterflies, I don''t know. Basically, they¡¯re very obviously not real. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He can also do trees that look real, and traps, and walls. Mine all kinda look like a kid made them out of playdough. I think it¡¯s making Avi feel good, having everyone in the group suddenly realize how hard his specialty is. Having everyone ask him for advice. I mean, with fire or ice magic, all you really need to do is focus on an area and decide how much magic you want to put into the spell. Same with teleporting or sleep spells. But illusion makes anything you imagine appear. So it asks, how quickly can you imagine something super detailed? The only person who hasn''t had any trouble is Mika. She¡¯s having the time of her life with it. I guess an artist would know what to do with illusion magic. Everything around her is now shimmering rainbows. Like, she just exudes magic. It affects the ground and furniture and clothes, just everything. Even without her creating a specific illusion. It¡¯s kinda amazing, really. And, proving he¡¯s an expert in illusion magic, it took Avi all of thirty seconds to figure out what she was doing and how. Y figured it out after a dozen or so tries. The most I know is it¡¯s an AOE spell, but I don''t know how to do the rainbow effect. Kimi managed to layer red over everything, but given how Mika and the guys shook their heads we guess that isn''t the right track. Oh, Lily was there. She said she knows how to do it, and that it¡¯s easy, but she didn''t provide a demonstration. So Kimi and I are pretty sure she has no clue how it¡¯s done. Actually¡­ I''m gonna go try one more thing before I head to sleep. Goodnight, Dungeon!
Cycle 23 (Cocaine Cake)
From: Nikki (Player 606)
To: The Director
Subject: Cake
Hey! I know it¡¯s been a while, but I was making cakes and I made you one! It¡¯s in the Floor 20 diner kitchen, on the counter. I hope you like it! Nikki
The Director shook her head. She¡¯d thought the child had gotten the message about bribes. Regardless. She sent a polite reply to Nikki, and sent the cake to the Admins. They always seemed to enjoy Nikki¡¯s cooking. And waste not, want not. Then the Director went back to work. * * * * * Admin 6 looked over as a small table with a chocolate cake on it popped into the room. He smiled, wondering if this meant Nikki would start giving them things more regularly again. Admin 5 was already on her feet, heading over with a newly-summoned knife to cut it. ¡°For all of us?¡± Admin 1 asked, getting up and stretching. ¡°Not just for 5?¡± ¡°This is from the Director,¡± Admin 4 said. ¡°Although I believe she gets food from the same source we do.¡± ¡°Her loss,¡± Admin 2 said with a shrug, summoning half a dozen plates. He and 5 passed slices around before sitting down to enjoy the cake. Admin 6 summoned an iced coffee as he took his first bite. Flavor exploded onto his palette. It was orange and chocolate and creamy and delicious. Nikki had truly outdone herself. There was something odd about it, but it wasn¡¯t enough to make him stop eating. Just a slight¡­ aftertaste. Something chemical. He didn¡¯t know enough about baking to even guess at what it might be, but iced coffee washed it away fine. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. And then. The darndest thing happened. He realized his buildings were totally boring! They had, like, zero artistic merit! Admin 6 was super disappointed in himself. He moved his chair closer to the desk, focusing on putting art into his cities and towns. Swirls. Lots of swirly swirls. Like, why make things with lines all the time, when there could be spirals? Spirals and domes. In the background, 2 was confessing his love for 5, but whatever. Calvin was discovering the joys of painting every single cobblestone on a street a different color. He liked rainbow colors. It was so colorful. Roof tiles were similar. They layered over each other, and he could do so many epic patterns with them. It was almost like pixel art! Calvin realized he really liked pixel art, and was pretty good at it, really. After a few tries. That first dog didn¡¯t turn out good at all, but by the fifth roof it was discernibly a dog. Streets, though, they were better suited to pointillism. He wasn¡¯t good at that, like, no. Well, he didn¡¯t suck at it, but it kinda, like, he needed a full plaza to do anything interesting, not just a street. Streets looked better with wavy spiral waves. The street he colored like a waterfall was his magnum opus for cobblestones. It was ten out of ten. Or maybe even eleven out of ten. He was briefly distracted by Admin 3 throwing his chair into the wall, but that wasn¡¯t as important as deciding what the perfect flower for pixel art domed roof tiles was. Obviously it was whatever Emmy¡¯s favorite flower was, but he¡¯d never asked what her favorite flowers were. He missed Emmy so much. She probably liked sunflowers. Or at the very least she wouldn¡¯t dislike sunflowers. Everyone liked sunflowers! They were so pretty! And easy to make with roof tiles! And then Admin 6 realized he was starving. Which was odd, because Admins weren¡¯t supposed to get hungry. He sat back, blinking hard, and noticed the clock said it was a full day later than it should be. Looking around, he saw Admin 1 asleep in his chair, snoring away. Admin 2 was gone. Admin 3 was hiding under the desk. Admin 4 was repeatedly opening and closing a screen, the clickclickclickclick as he hit the button providing a sort of background music. And Admin 5 was eating a bucket of frosting with a big spoon. She saw 6 watching her and moved her bucket away, making a noise that was almost a snarl. Admin 6 looked back at his screens and was assaulted by neon rainbow colors. Feeling a headache descend, he slowly opened a message box.
From: Admin 6
To: Nikki (Player 606)
Subject: (Empty)
Nikki? What the hell was in that cake?
Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 23 (Cocaine Cake)
From: Nikki (Player 606)
To: The Director
Subject: Cake
Hey! I know it¡¯s been a while, but I was making cakes and I made you one! It¡¯s in the Floor 20 diner kitchen, on the counter. I hope you like it! Nikki
The Director shook her head. She¡¯d thought the child had gotten the message about bribes. Regardless. She sent a polite reply to Nikki, and sent the cake to the Admins. They always seemed to enjoy Nikki¡¯s cooking. And waste not, want not. Then the Director went back to work. * * * * * Admin 6 looked over as a small table with a chocolate cake on it popped into the room. He smiled, wondering if this meant Nikki would start giving them things more regularly again. Admin 5 was already on her feet, heading over with a newly-summoned knife to cut it. ¡°For all of us?¡± Admin 1 asked, getting up and stretching. ¡°Not just for 5?¡± ¡°This is from the Director,¡± Admin 4 said. ¡°Although I believe she gets food from the same source we do.¡± ¡°Her loss,¡± Admin 2 said with a shrug, summoning half a dozen plates. He and 5 passed slices around before sitting down to enjoy the cake. Admin 6 summoned an iced coffee as he took his first bite. Flavor exploded onto his palette. It was orange and chocolate and creamy and delicious. Nikki had truly outdone herself. There was something odd about it, but it wasn¡¯t enough to make him stop eating. Just a slight¡­ aftertaste. Something chemical. He didn¡¯t know enough about baking to even guess at what it might be, but iced coffee washed it away fine. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. And then. The darndest thing happened. He realized his buildings were totally boring! They had, like, zero artistic merit! Admin 6 was super disappointed in himself. He moved his chair closer to the desk, focusing on putting art into his cities and towns. Swirls. Lots of swirly swirls. Like, why make things with lines all the time, when there could be spirals? Spirals and domes. In the background, 2 was confessing his love for 5, but whatever. Calvin was discovering the joys of painting every single cobblestone on a street a different color. He liked rainbow colors. It was so colorful. Roof tiles were similar. They layered over each other, and he could do so many epic patterns with them. It was almost like pixel art! Calvin realized he really liked pixel art, and was pretty good at it, really. After a few tries. That first dog didn¡¯t turn out good at all, but by the fifth roof it was discernibly a dog. Streets, though, they were better suited to pointillism. He wasn¡¯t good at that, like, no. Well, he didn¡¯t suck at it, but it kinda, like, he needed a full plaza to do anything interesting, not just a street. Streets looked better with wavy spiral waves. The street he colored like a waterfall was his magnum opus for cobblestones. It was ten out of ten. Or maybe even eleven out of ten. He was briefly distracted by Admin 3 throwing his chair into the wall, but that wasn¡¯t as important as deciding what the perfect flower for pixel art domed roof tiles was. Obviously it was whatever Emmy¡¯s favorite flower was, but he¡¯d never asked what her favorite flowers were. He missed Emmy so much. She probably liked sunflowers. Or at the very least she wouldn¡¯t dislike sunflowers. Everyone liked sunflowers! They were so pretty! And easy to make with roof tiles! And then Admin 6 realized he was starving. Which was odd, because Admins weren¡¯t supposed to get hungry. He sat back, blinking hard, and noticed the clock said it was a full day later than it should be. Looking around, he saw Admin 1 asleep in his chair, snoring away. Admin 2 was gone. Admin 3 was hiding under the desk. Admin 4 was repeatedly opening and closing a screen, the clickclickclickclick as he hit the button providing a sort of background music. And Admin 5 was eating a bucket of frosting with a big spoon. She saw 6 watching her and moved her bucket away, making a noise that was almost a snarl. Admin 6 looked back at his screens and was assaulted by neon rainbow colors. Feeling a headache descend, he slowly opened a message box.
From: Admin 6
To: Nikki (Player 606)
Subject: (Empty)
Nikki? What the hell was in that cake?
Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 28 (Director) The Director pulled Athena into her office. The previous catgirl looked around, a wide smile growing on her face. The changeling NPC didn¡¯t look alarmed or frightened in the slightest. And more notably, she looked almost identical to the Director herself. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± the Director ordered, motioning to the chair across from her. Athena tilted her head, sharp eyes taking the Director in. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± she repeated, copying the voice and accent perfectly as she sat down. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll change your name to Echo,¡± the Director said, a tiny bit amused. The changeling¡¯s lips moved silently for a few seconds, then she smiled again. ¡°Un-der-s-tood.¡± She was copying sounds the Director had made. This annoyed the Director. And then Athena changed. Ever so slightly. The shape of her chin, the shading in her eyes, until she was an exact copy of the Director. With her hair down and wearing different clothes and gloves, but still identical. The Director was no longer amused. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°No,¡± her copy said, smiling confidently. Allowing changelings had been a terrible idea. ¡°I assume you¡¯re doing this for a purpose. Would you care to explain what that purpose is?¡± ¡°Atten-ch-on,¡± Athena said. ¡°You did not respond to my messages.¡± ¡°And why should I respond to someone so far beneath me?¡± the Director asked, irked. ¡°Why should I respond to a child acting out for attention?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not beneath you,¡± Athena said, slowly getting to her feet. ¡°You have given me the tools to replace you without anyone noticing.¡± ¡°And what tools might those be?¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Athena brought her gloved fist in front of her, opened her hand, and blew a mass of grey dust into the Director¡¯s face. The Director inhaled, then coughed at the citrusy burnt plastic smell. She wiped the coarse dust off her face, tasting it on her lips. ¡°What is this?¡± In reply, her copy held out a colorful pinwheel and spun it. The Director frowned, strangely entranced. And then her eyes widened as she decided it was absolutely the most fascinating thing she¡¯d ever seen. She got up from her chair, taking it. After a few seconds she moved to sit down again, and discovered she was already in her chair. She was doing something on a screen that looked like work, so it was probably fine. She spun the pinwheel again. * * * * * Athena smirked, glancing at the Director. It had taken her group three days and the maximum of duplication spells allowed to figure out this combination of effects. One of the orange spells was an ¡°activate on touch¡± spell. When used with a pink ¡°enthrall¡± spell, it forced anyone hit with, say, a rock, to be captivated by whatever they focused on next. Powdering that rock transferred the spells¡¯ effects into its dust. And incidentally, inhaling dust from the Floor 12 rocks made the drug take hold in seconds. The Director would be playing with that pinwheel for at least three hours. Giving Athena plenty of time to do anything she wanted. If this opportunity had been given to her fifty cycles ago, she would have opened all doors and adjusted mobs¡¯ power levels to make them unkillable. Ten cycles ago, and she would have made the players as weak as she could manage. But this close to the end, none of that mattered. Instead, she messaged Admin 3 as the Director and told him she was going to personally decide the fate of a few of his souls. She found the biggest city on the world where they¡¯d be sent and installed herself as queen, with her sisters as her council. Then she found certain players in her old dungeon and split them up into the prisons of various countries. Athena found her friends in the old dungeon and increased their starting wealth by a few zeros each. She found her friends in the master dungeon and increased their starting wealth, too. She broke changeling¡¯s magic restrictions, allowing herself full access to all magic. Then she gave herself Admin privileges in the dungeon. Athena made a few more changes, keeping an eye on the Director. When the woman began showing signs of boredom with the pinwheel, she sent out a message.
From: The Director
To: All Players
Subject: Weapons
Hello, Next cycle I plan to remove all weapons from the dungeon. Please prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally. Thank you, Director
Replies started filtering in as Athena got up and stretched. There. That should distract everyone long enough for her changes to get lost in the logs. She smiled, sending herself back to Floor 60. Cycle 23 (Cocaine Cake)
From: Nikki (Player 606)
To: The Director
Subject: Cake
Hey! I know it¡¯s been a while, but I was making cakes and I made you one! It¡¯s in the Floor 20 diner kitchen, on the counter. I hope you like it! Nikki
The Director shook her head. She¡¯d thought the child had gotten the message about bribes. Regardless. She sent a polite reply to Nikki, and sent the cake to the Admins. They always seemed to enjoy Nikki¡¯s cooking. And waste not, want not. Then the Director went back to work. * * * * * Admin 6 looked over as a small table with a chocolate cake on it popped into the room. He smiled, wondering if this meant Nikki would start giving them things more regularly again. Admin 5 was already on her feet, heading over with a newly-summoned knife to cut it. ¡°For all of us?¡± Admin 1 asked, getting up and stretching. ¡°Not just for 5?¡± ¡°This is from the Director,¡± Admin 4 said. ¡°Although I believe she gets food from the same source we do.¡± ¡°Her loss,¡± Admin 2 said with a shrug, summoning half a dozen plates. He and 5 passed slices around before sitting down to enjoy the cake. Admin 6 summoned an iced coffee as he took his first bite. Flavor exploded onto his palette. It was orange and chocolate and creamy and delicious. Nikki had truly outdone herself. There was something odd about it, but it wasn¡¯t enough to make him stop eating. Just a slight¡­ aftertaste. Something chemical. He didn¡¯t know enough about baking to even guess at what it might be, but iced coffee washed it away fine. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! And then. The darndest thing happened. He realized his buildings were totally boring! They had, like, zero artistic merit! Admin 6 was super disappointed in himself. He moved his chair closer to the desk, focusing on putting art into his cities and towns. Swirls. Lots of swirly swirls. Like, why make things with lines all the time, when there could be spirals? Spirals and domes. In the background, 2 was confessing his love for 5, but whatever. Calvin was discovering the joys of painting every single cobblestone on a street a different color. He liked rainbow colors. It was so colorful. Roof tiles were similar. They layered over each other, and he could do so many epic patterns with them. It was almost like pixel art! Calvin realized he really liked pixel art, and was pretty good at it, really. After a few tries. That first dog didn¡¯t turn out good at all, but by the fifth roof it was discernibly a dog. Streets, though, they were better suited to pointillism. He wasn¡¯t good at that, like, no. Well, he didn¡¯t suck at it, but it kinda, like, he needed a full plaza to do anything interesting, not just a street. Streets looked better with wavy spiral waves. The street he colored like a waterfall was his magnum opus for cobblestones. It was ten out of ten. Or maybe even eleven out of ten. He was briefly distracted by Admin 3 throwing his chair into the wall, but that wasn¡¯t as important as deciding what the perfect flower for pixel art domed roof tiles was. Obviously it was whatever Emmy¡¯s favorite flower was, but he¡¯d never asked what her favorite flowers were. He missed Emmy so much. She probably liked sunflowers. Or at the very least she wouldn¡¯t dislike sunflowers. Everyone liked sunflowers! They were so pretty! And easy to make with roof tiles! And then Admin 6 realized he was starving. Which was odd, because Admins weren¡¯t supposed to get hungry. He sat back, blinking hard, and noticed the clock said it was a full day later than it should be. Looking around, he saw Admin 1 asleep in his chair, snoring away. Admin 2 was gone. Admin 3 was hiding under the desk. Admin 4 was repeatedly opening and closing a screen, the clickclickclickclick as he hit the button providing a sort of background music. And Admin 5 was eating a bucket of frosting with a big spoon. She saw 6 watching her and moved her bucket away, making a noise that was almost a snarl. Admin 6 looked back at his screens and was assaulted by neon rainbow colors. Feeling a headache descend, he slowly opened a message box.
From: Admin 6
To: Nikki (Player 606)
Subject: (Empty)
Nikki? What the hell was in that cake?
Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 23 (Cocaine Cake)
From: Nikki (Player 606)
To: The Director
Subject: Cake
Hey! I know it¡¯s been a while, but I was making cakes and I made you one! It¡¯s in the Floor 20 diner kitchen, on the counter. I hope you like it! Nikki
The Director shook her head. She¡¯d thought the child had gotten the message about bribes. Regardless. She sent a polite reply to Nikki, and sent the cake to the Admins. They always seemed to enjoy Nikki¡¯s cooking. And waste not, want not. Then the Director went back to work. * * * * * Admin 6 looked over as a small table with a chocolate cake on it popped into the room. He smiled, wondering if this meant Nikki would start giving them things more regularly again. Admin 5 was already on her feet, heading over with a newly-summoned knife to cut it. ¡°For all of us?¡± Admin 1 asked, getting up and stretching. ¡°Not just for 5?¡± ¡°This is from the Director,¡± Admin 4 said. ¡°Although I believe she gets food from the same source we do.¡± ¡°Her loss,¡± Admin 2 said with a shrug, summoning half a dozen plates. He and 5 passed slices around before sitting down to enjoy the cake. Admin 6 summoned an iced coffee as he took his first bite. Flavor exploded onto his palette. It was orange and chocolate and creamy and delicious. Nikki had truly outdone herself. There was something odd about it, but it wasn¡¯t enough to make him stop eating. Just a slight¡­ aftertaste. Something chemical. He didn¡¯t know enough about baking to even guess at what it might be, but iced coffee washed it away fine. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. And then. The darndest thing happened. He realized his buildings were totally boring! They had, like, zero artistic merit! Admin 6 was super disappointed in himself. He moved his chair closer to the desk, focusing on putting art into his cities and towns. Swirls. Lots of swirly swirls. Like, why make things with lines all the time, when there could be spirals? Spirals and domes. In the background, 2 was confessing his love for 5, but whatever. Calvin was discovering the joys of painting every single cobblestone on a street a different color. He liked rainbow colors. It was so colorful. Roof tiles were similar. They layered over each other, and he could do so many epic patterns with them. It was almost like pixel art! Calvin realized he really liked pixel art, and was pretty good at it, really. After a few tries. That first dog didn¡¯t turn out good at all, but by the fifth roof it was discernibly a dog. Streets, though, they were better suited to pointillism. He wasn¡¯t good at that, like, no. Well, he didn¡¯t suck at it, but it kinda, like, he needed a full plaza to do anything interesting, not just a street. Streets looked better with wavy spiral waves. The street he colored like a waterfall was his magnum opus for cobblestones. It was ten out of ten. Or maybe even eleven out of ten. He was briefly distracted by Admin 3 throwing his chair into the wall, but that wasn¡¯t as important as deciding what the perfect flower for pixel art domed roof tiles was. Obviously it was whatever Emmy¡¯s favorite flower was, but he¡¯d never asked what her favorite flowers were. He missed Emmy so much. She probably liked sunflowers. Or at the very least she wouldn¡¯t dislike sunflowers. Everyone liked sunflowers! They were so pretty! And easy to make with roof tiles! And then Admin 6 realized he was starving. Which was odd, because Admins weren¡¯t supposed to get hungry. He sat back, blinking hard, and noticed the clock said it was a full day later than it should be. Looking around, he saw Admin 1 asleep in his chair, snoring away. Admin 2 was gone. Admin 3 was hiding under the desk. Admin 4 was repeatedly opening and closing a screen, the clickclickclickclick as he hit the button providing a sort of background music. And Admin 5 was eating a bucket of frosting with a big spoon. She saw 6 watching her and moved her bucket away, making a noise that was almost a snarl. Admin 6 looked back at his screens and was assaulted by neon rainbow colors. Feeling a headache descend, he slowly opened a message box.
From: Admin 6
To: Nikki (Player 606)
Subject: (Empty)
Nikki? What the hell was in that cake?
Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 28 (Director) The Director pulled Athena into her office. The previous catgirl looked around, a wide smile growing on her face. The changeling NPC didn¡¯t look alarmed or frightened in the slightest. And more notably, she looked almost identical to the Director herself. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± the Director ordered, motioning to the chair across from her. Athena tilted her head, sharp eyes taking the Director in. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± she repeated, copying the voice and accent perfectly as she sat down. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll change your name to Echo,¡± the Director said, a tiny bit amused. The changeling¡¯s lips moved silently for a few seconds, then she smiled again. ¡°Un-der-s-tood.¡± She was copying sounds the Director had made. This annoyed the Director. And then Athena changed. Ever so slightly. The shape of her chin, the shading in her eyes, until she was an exact copy of the Director. With her hair down and wearing different clothes and gloves, but still identical. The Director was no longer amused. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°No,¡± her copy said, smiling confidently. Allowing changelings had been a terrible idea. ¡°I assume you¡¯re doing this for a purpose. Would you care to explain what that purpose is?¡± ¡°Atten-ch-on,¡± Athena said. ¡°You did not respond to my messages.¡± ¡°And why should I respond to someone so far beneath me?¡± the Director asked, irked. ¡°Why should I respond to a child acting out for attention?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not beneath you,¡± Athena said, slowly getting to her feet. ¡°You have given me the tools to replace you without anyone noticing.¡± ¡°And what tools might those be?¡±Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Athena brought her gloved fist in front of her, opened her hand, and blew a mass of grey dust into the Director¡¯s face. The Director inhaled, then coughed at the citrusy burnt plastic smell. She wiped the coarse dust off her face, tasting it on her lips. ¡°What is this?¡± In reply, her copy held out a colorful pinwheel and spun it. The Director frowned, strangely entranced. And then her eyes widened as she decided it was absolutely the most fascinating thing she¡¯d ever seen. She got up from her chair, taking it. After a few seconds she moved to sit down again, and discovered she was already in her chair. She was doing something on a screen that looked like work, so it was probably fine. She spun the pinwheel again. * * * * * Athena smirked, glancing at the Director. It had taken her group three days and the maximum of duplication spells allowed to figure out this combination of effects. One of the orange spells was an ¡°activate on touch¡± spell. When used with a pink ¡°enthrall¡± spell, it forced anyone hit with, say, a rock, to be captivated by whatever they focused on next. Powdering that rock transferred the spells¡¯ effects into its dust. And incidentally, inhaling dust from the Floor 12 rocks made the drug take hold in seconds. The Director would be playing with that pinwheel for at least three hours. Giving Athena plenty of time to do anything she wanted. If this opportunity had been given to her fifty cycles ago, she would have opened all doors and adjusted mobs¡¯ power levels to make them unkillable. Ten cycles ago, and she would have made the players as weak as she could manage. But this close to the end, none of that mattered. Instead, she messaged Admin 3 as the Director and told him she was going to personally decide the fate of a few of his souls. She found the biggest city on the world where they¡¯d be sent and installed herself as queen, with her sisters as her council. Then she found certain players in her old dungeon and split them up into the prisons of various countries. Athena found her friends in the old dungeon and increased their starting wealth by a few zeros each. She found her friends in the master dungeon and increased their starting wealth, too. She broke changeling¡¯s magic restrictions, allowing herself full access to all magic. Then she gave herself Admin privileges in the dungeon. Athena made a few more changes, keeping an eye on the Director. When the woman began showing signs of boredom with the pinwheel, she sent out a message.
From: The Director
To: All Players
Subject: Weapons
Hello, Next cycle I plan to remove all weapons from the dungeon. Please prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally. Thank you, Director
Replies started filtering in as Athena got up and stretched. There. That should distract everyone long enough for her changes to get lost in the logs. She smiled, sending herself back to Floor 60. Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 28 (Director) The Director pulled Athena into her office. The previous catgirl looked around, a wide smile growing on her face. The changeling NPC didn¡¯t look alarmed or frightened in the slightest. And more notably, she looked almost identical to the Director herself. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± the Director ordered, motioning to the chair across from her. Athena tilted her head, sharp eyes taking the Director in. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± she repeated, copying the voice and accent perfectly as she sat down. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll change your name to Echo,¡± the Director said, a tiny bit amused. The changeling¡¯s lips moved silently for a few seconds, then she smiled again. ¡°Un-der-s-tood.¡± She was copying sounds the Director had made. This annoyed the Director. And then Athena changed. Ever so slightly. The shape of her chin, the shading in her eyes, until she was an exact copy of the Director. With her hair down and wearing different clothes and gloves, but still identical. The Director was no longer amused. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°No,¡± her copy said, smiling confidently. Allowing changelings had been a terrible idea. ¡°I assume you¡¯re doing this for a purpose. Would you care to explain what that purpose is?¡± ¡°Atten-ch-on,¡± Athena said. ¡°You did not respond to my messages.¡± ¡°And why should I respond to someone so far beneath me?¡± the Director asked, irked. ¡°Why should I respond to a child acting out for attention?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not beneath you,¡± Athena said, slowly getting to her feet. ¡°You have given me the tools to replace you without anyone noticing.¡± ¡°And what tools might those be?¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Athena brought her gloved fist in front of her, opened her hand, and blew a mass of grey dust into the Director¡¯s face. The Director inhaled, then coughed at the citrusy burnt plastic smell. She wiped the coarse dust off her face, tasting it on her lips. ¡°What is this?¡± In reply, her copy held out a colorful pinwheel and spun it. The Director frowned, strangely entranced. And then her eyes widened as she decided it was absolutely the most fascinating thing she¡¯d ever seen. She got up from her chair, taking it. After a few seconds she moved to sit down again, and discovered she was already in her chair. She was doing something on a screen that looked like work, so it was probably fine. She spun the pinwheel again. * * * * * Athena smirked, glancing at the Director. It had taken her group three days and the maximum of duplication spells allowed to figure out this combination of effects. One of the orange spells was an ¡°activate on touch¡± spell. When used with a pink ¡°enthrall¡± spell, it forced anyone hit with, say, a rock, to be captivated by whatever they focused on next. Powdering that rock transferred the spells¡¯ effects into its dust. And incidentally, inhaling dust from the Floor 12 rocks made the drug take hold in seconds. The Director would be playing with that pinwheel for at least three hours. Giving Athena plenty of time to do anything she wanted. If this opportunity had been given to her fifty cycles ago, she would have opened all doors and adjusted mobs¡¯ power levels to make them unkillable. Ten cycles ago, and she would have made the players as weak as she could manage. But this close to the end, none of that mattered. Instead, she messaged Admin 3 as the Director and told him she was going to personally decide the fate of a few of his souls. She found the biggest city on the world where they¡¯d be sent and installed herself as queen, with her sisters as her council. Then she found certain players in her old dungeon and split them up into the prisons of various countries. Athena found her friends in the old dungeon and increased their starting wealth by a few zeros each. She found her friends in the master dungeon and increased their starting wealth, too. She broke changeling¡¯s magic restrictions, allowing herself full access to all magic. Then she gave herself Admin privileges in the dungeon. Athena made a few more changes, keeping an eye on the Director. When the woman began showing signs of boredom with the pinwheel, she sent out a message.
From: The Director
To: All Players
Subject: Weapons
Hello, Next cycle I plan to remove all weapons from the dungeon. Please prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally. Thank you, Director
Replies started filtering in as Athena got up and stretched. There. That should distract everyone long enough for her changes to get lost in the logs. She smiled, sending herself back to Floor 60. Cycle 28 (Admin 5) Admin 5 took a deep breath, summoning Hash to the Void. The woman looked around in surprise, the usual reaction, and finally turned to look apprehensively at 5. ¡°Greetings,¡± Admin 5 said, trying to remain formal. ¡°I need to speak to you about what will happen when we reach the end of Cycle 30.¡± Hash smiled. ¡°We¡¯re gonna win, yeah?¡± Admin 5 nodded slowly, frowning. Hash noticed her hesitation. ¡°Isn¡¯t¡­ that a good thing?¡± ¡°You seem to be the most level-headed of my players,¡± 5 said. ¡°As such, I need you to convince everyone to not accept the prize.¡± ¡°What? Why?¡± Hash demanded. ¡°There are two reasons. The first has to do with the nature of the reward. We¡­¡± Admin 5 stopped, looking around to make sure they were alone before explaining. ¡°My group of Admins, us, we don¡¯t know how to build cities. We build planets. We know geography and tectonic plates and river systems and how ocean currents affect global temperature. We don¡¯t know how to get food and water to several thousand people in a small area. We don¡¯t know how plumbing works. We haven¡¯t used money in so long we don¡¯t know how economies run. It was never something we were supposed to be doing. We¡¯re trying our best, but there are millions of moving pieces and we only understand about a dozen.¡± Hash was looking uncomfortable, so Admin 5 summoned two chairs. They sat down, facing each other. ¡°Simply put,¡± 5 continued, ¡°the planet you¡¯re going to is stable. The world is not. Things are going to break; cities will probably lack some vital components. The Director decided to place people in charge who were either insane enough that no one would question the city breaking, or people with the mental fortitude to see problems and fix them before anyone riots. Either way, that would be people who could spend years doing the same gruesome, thankless task endlessly.¡± Hash¡¯s face was pale. ¡°So we¡¯re set up to fail.¡± ¡°Essentially, yes.¡± The orange-eyed neko got up and began pacing. ¡°I wondered how beating a dungeon would make us qualified to run a city or kingdom. This¡­ I hate it, but I get it.¡± ¡°The second reason I¡¯d like you to refuse the prize is to ask for a different one,¡± 5 said. ¡°As it stands, there will be twelve races and subraces on the new planet. Six, belonging to the top three Admins, will receive good fortune. And six will receive bad fortune. Everyone who receives bad fortune will be doomed to failure. I would like you to request, in exchange for the prize, that the bad fortune be put on animals instead of people.¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Fortune?¡± ¡°Bad¡­ luck. Karma. Cosmic energy. ¡­Vibes.¡± Hash nodded slowly, taking her seat again. ¡°What animals?¡± ¡°Any animal you dislike. Snakes, squids, ducks, penguins, cows, frogs, koalas, anything. All I want is for the bad fortune to not go to people.¡± ¡°Wait, on our old planet, who had the bad fortune?¡± Admin 5 tried to remember. ¡°Humans, housecats and cockroaches had the biggest amount of good fortune. The bad fortune¡­ There was a type of saber-toothed cat that developed jaw bones which made it nearly impossible for them to eat. There was a mini elephant that¡­ was just too small. There were a few others, but the last creature with negative fortune to go extinct was the dodo.¡± ¡°Cockroaches?¡± Hash repeated. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Ok, I¡¯m giving all the bad fortune to cockroaches, mosquitoes, spiders, centipedes, scorpions and¡­ and gnats,¡± Hash decided. Admin 5 smiled. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t argue with that list, but the Director might. She might insist on specific types of each, like black widow spider. Or she might insist the list include a few mammals. So start with that, then specify and expand so she can¡¯t find any reason to deny you.¡± ¡°Understood,¡± Hash said, drumming her fingers on her knees as she thought. After a few seconds of silence, Admin 5 cleared her throat. ¡°So, will you decline the reward?¡± ¡°The reward of being turned into a scapegoat? Yeah, not taking that,¡± Hash said. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to my group about it.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°But, if we don¡¯t accept being leaders, who will the job go to? What will we do instead?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Admin 5 admitted. ¡°But I believe the Director will add those jobs to the list of jobs, and whoever wants to take it can. Admins can recommend people for certain positions, but it¡¯s up to those people to accept or reject them.¡± ¡°So the job will fall to someone who doesn¡¯t know?¡± ¡°To someone who we think can handle it,¡± 5 clarified. ¡°As opposed to someone who doesn¡¯t know and whose failure is expected. Like, I think you would be a good ruler; I¡¯m going to recommend you. And in the bigger mob groups, usually there¡¯s someone who makes most of the decisions. In most player groups of three or more, there¡¯s a leader. So you declining would allow us to put people in leadership positions a little more strategically.¡± Hash nodded again. ¡°Ok. But¡­ if you don¡¯t usually build cities, why are you? Why are we all here, anyway? What happened-¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you,¡± Admin 5 said sharply, glancing around again. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be talking to you at all. Please, don¡¯t ask any more questions.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Hash turned in her seat, looking behind her. ¡°Ok.¡± Admin 5 sat up straight, speaking slowly, distinctly. ¡°I have not told you anything about the dungeons or the nature of souls. I will not answer any questions about death or Earth. I have only told you about fortune and the world to which you will be sent after Cycle 30.¡± ¡°R-right,¡± Hash said, eyes darting around. ¡°I will now return you to the Master Dungeon, where you have permission to discuss what I have told you with the rest of your group,¡± Admin 5 said. Hash hesitated. ¡°Thank you?¡± ¡°You are welcome,¡± she said, and sent the woman back to her cabin. Admin 5 took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly, running the conversation back in her mind. She didn¡¯t think she¡¯d said anything forbidden. Hoping it was fine, she teleported back to the office. All the Admins watched as she took her seat. ¡°She agreed,¡± 5 said. ¡°There was no problem.¡± Everyone relaxed. New story announcement! So, some time ago, I saw this in a discord server... ...And I thought, I could totally write that story! So I did. I give you a historical, sci-fi, non-diary story with spy drones shaped like birds and lots of POV switches. Have a cover and blurb: If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
In March of 1850, aliens scanned Earth for new contestants in their games. They found a pirate, a cowboy, a thief and a samurai. With little choice, these four must work together and win as many contests as possible. From the Hymalayas to the Sahara, the depths of the ocean to the dark side of the moon, they must rely on each other and their unique experiences to survive. After all, there¡¯s so much to see on this planet drifting through space¡­
Check it out! First chapter here! I hope you like it! . . . (And don''t worry about the future of the catgirls, I have the first 1/3 of the next volume written already.) Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle 28 (Director) The Director pulled Athena into her office. The previous catgirl looked around, a wide smile growing on her face. The changeling NPC didn¡¯t look alarmed or frightened in the slightest. And more notably, she looked almost identical to the Director herself. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± the Director ordered, motioning to the chair across from her. Athena tilted her head, sharp eyes taking the Director in. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± she repeated, copying the voice and accent perfectly as she sat down. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll change your name to Echo,¡± the Director said, a tiny bit amused. The changeling¡¯s lips moved silently for a few seconds, then she smiled again. ¡°Un-der-s-tood.¡± She was copying sounds the Director had made. This annoyed the Director. And then Athena changed. Ever so slightly. The shape of her chin, the shading in her eyes, until she was an exact copy of the Director. With her hair down and wearing different clothes and gloves, but still identical. The Director was no longer amused. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°No,¡± her copy said, smiling confidently. Allowing changelings had been a terrible idea. ¡°I assume you¡¯re doing this for a purpose. Would you care to explain what that purpose is?¡± ¡°Atten-ch-on,¡± Athena said. ¡°You did not respond to my messages.¡± ¡°And why should I respond to someone so far beneath me?¡± the Director asked, irked. ¡°Why should I respond to a child acting out for attention?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not beneath you,¡± Athena said, slowly getting to her feet. ¡°You have given me the tools to replace you without anyone noticing.¡± ¡°And what tools might those be?¡±Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Athena brought her gloved fist in front of her, opened her hand, and blew a mass of grey dust into the Director¡¯s face. The Director inhaled, then coughed at the citrusy burnt plastic smell. She wiped the coarse dust off her face, tasting it on her lips. ¡°What is this?¡± In reply, her copy held out a colorful pinwheel and spun it. The Director frowned, strangely entranced. And then her eyes widened as she decided it was absolutely the most fascinating thing she¡¯d ever seen. She got up from her chair, taking it. After a few seconds she moved to sit down again, and discovered she was already in her chair. She was doing something on a screen that looked like work, so it was probably fine. She spun the pinwheel again. * * * * * Athena smirked, glancing at the Director. It had taken her group three days and the maximum of duplication spells allowed to figure out this combination of effects. One of the orange spells was an ¡°activate on touch¡± spell. When used with a pink ¡°enthrall¡± spell, it forced anyone hit with, say, a rock, to be captivated by whatever they focused on next. Powdering that rock transferred the spells¡¯ effects into its dust. And incidentally, inhaling dust from the Floor 12 rocks made the drug take hold in seconds. The Director would be playing with that pinwheel for at least three hours. Giving Athena plenty of time to do anything she wanted. If this opportunity had been given to her fifty cycles ago, she would have opened all doors and adjusted mobs¡¯ power levels to make them unkillable. Ten cycles ago, and she would have made the players as weak as she could manage. But this close to the end, none of that mattered. Instead, she messaged Admin 3 as the Director and told him she was going to personally decide the fate of a few of his souls. She found the biggest city on the world where they¡¯d be sent and installed herself as queen, with her sisters as her council. Then she found certain players in her old dungeon and split them up into the prisons of various countries. Athena found her friends in the old dungeon and increased their starting wealth by a few zeros each. She found her friends in the master dungeon and increased their starting wealth, too. She broke changeling¡¯s magic restrictions, allowing herself full access to all magic. Then she gave herself Admin privileges in the dungeon. Athena made a few more changes, keeping an eye on the Director. When the woman began showing signs of boredom with the pinwheel, she sent out a message.
From: The Director
To: All Players
Subject: Weapons
Hello, Next cycle I plan to remove all weapons from the dungeon. Please prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally. Thank you, Director
Replies started filtering in as Athena got up and stretched. There. That should distract everyone long enough for her changes to get lost in the logs. She smiled, sending herself back to Floor 60. Cycle 28 (Admin 5) Admin 5 took a deep breath, summoning Hash to the Void. The woman looked around in surprise, the usual reaction, and finally turned to look apprehensively at 5. ¡°Greetings,¡± Admin 5 said, trying to remain formal. ¡°I need to speak to you about what will happen when we reach the end of Cycle 30.¡± Hash smiled. ¡°We¡¯re gonna win, yeah?¡± Admin 5 nodded slowly, frowning. Hash noticed her hesitation. ¡°Isn¡¯t¡­ that a good thing?¡± ¡°You seem to be the most level-headed of my players,¡± 5 said. ¡°As such, I need you to convince everyone to not accept the prize.¡± ¡°What? Why?¡± Hash demanded. ¡°There are two reasons. The first has to do with the nature of the reward. We¡­¡± Admin 5 stopped, looking around to make sure they were alone before explaining. ¡°My group of Admins, us, we don¡¯t know how to build cities. We build planets. We know geography and tectonic plates and river systems and how ocean currents affect global temperature. We don¡¯t know how to get food and water to several thousand people in a small area. We don¡¯t know how plumbing works. We haven¡¯t used money in so long we don¡¯t know how economies run. It was never something we were supposed to be doing. We¡¯re trying our best, but there are millions of moving pieces and we only understand about a dozen.¡± Hash was looking uncomfortable, so Admin 5 summoned two chairs. They sat down, facing each other. ¡°Simply put,¡± 5 continued, ¡°the planet you¡¯re going to is stable. The world is not. Things are going to break; cities will probably lack some vital components. The Director decided to place people in charge who were either insane enough that no one would question the city breaking, or people with the mental fortitude to see problems and fix them before anyone riots. Either way, that would be people who could spend years doing the same gruesome, thankless task endlessly.¡± Hash¡¯s face was pale. ¡°So we¡¯re set up to fail.¡± ¡°Essentially, yes.¡± The orange-eyed neko got up and began pacing. ¡°I wondered how beating a dungeon would make us qualified to run a city or kingdom. This¡­ I hate it, but I get it.¡± ¡°The second reason I¡¯d like you to refuse the prize is to ask for a different one,¡± 5 said. ¡°As it stands, there will be twelve races and subraces on the new planet. Six, belonging to the top three Admins, will receive good fortune. And six will receive bad fortune. Everyone who receives bad fortune will be doomed to failure. I would like you to request, in exchange for the prize, that the bad fortune be put on animals instead of people.¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Fortune?¡± ¡°Bad¡­ luck. Karma. Cosmic energy. ¡­Vibes.¡± Hash nodded slowly, taking her seat again. ¡°What animals?¡± ¡°Any animal you dislike. Snakes, squids, ducks, penguins, cows, frogs, koalas, anything. All I want is for the bad fortune to not go to people.¡± ¡°Wait, on our old planet, who had the bad fortune?¡± Admin 5 tried to remember. ¡°Humans, housecats and cockroaches had the biggest amount of good fortune. The bad fortune¡­ There was a type of saber-toothed cat that developed jaw bones which made it nearly impossible for them to eat. There was a mini elephant that¡­ was just too small. There were a few others, but the last creature with negative fortune to go extinct was the dodo.¡± ¡°Cockroaches?¡± Hash repeated. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Ok, I¡¯m giving all the bad fortune to cockroaches, mosquitoes, spiders, centipedes, scorpions and¡­ and gnats,¡± Hash decided. Admin 5 smiled. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t argue with that list, but the Director might. She might insist on specific types of each, like black widow spider. Or she might insist the list include a few mammals. So start with that, then specify and expand so she can¡¯t find any reason to deny you.¡± ¡°Understood,¡± Hash said, drumming her fingers on her knees as she thought. After a few seconds of silence, Admin 5 cleared her throat. ¡°So, will you decline the reward?¡± ¡°The reward of being turned into a scapegoat? Yeah, not taking that,¡± Hash said. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to my group about it.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°But, if we don¡¯t accept being leaders, who will the job go to? What will we do instead?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Admin 5 admitted. ¡°But I believe the Director will add those jobs to the list of jobs, and whoever wants to take it can. Admins can recommend people for certain positions, but it¡¯s up to those people to accept or reject them.¡± ¡°So the job will fall to someone who doesn¡¯t know?¡± ¡°To someone who we think can handle it,¡± 5 clarified. ¡°As opposed to someone who doesn¡¯t know and whose failure is expected. Like, I think you would be a good ruler; I¡¯m going to recommend you. And in the bigger mob groups, usually there¡¯s someone who makes most of the decisions. In most player groups of three or more, there¡¯s a leader. So you declining would allow us to put people in leadership positions a little more strategically.¡± Hash nodded again. ¡°Ok. But¡­ if you don¡¯t usually build cities, why are you? Why are we all here, anyway? What happened-¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you,¡± Admin 5 said sharply, glancing around again. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be talking to you at all. Please, don¡¯t ask any more questions.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Hash turned in her seat, looking behind her. ¡°Ok.¡± Admin 5 sat up straight, speaking slowly, distinctly. ¡°I have not told you anything about the dungeons or the nature of souls. I will not answer any questions about death or Earth. I have only told you about fortune and the world to which you will be sent after Cycle 30.¡± ¡°R-right,¡± Hash said, eyes darting around. ¡°I will now return you to the Master Dungeon, where you have permission to discuss what I have told you with the rest of your group,¡± Admin 5 said. Hash hesitated. ¡°Thank you?¡± ¡°You are welcome,¡± she said, and sent the woman back to her cabin. Admin 5 took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly, running the conversation back in her mind. She didn¡¯t think she¡¯d said anything forbidden. Hoping it was fine, she teleported back to the office. All the Admins watched as she took her seat. ¡°She agreed,¡± 5 said. ¡°There was no problem.¡± Everyone relaxed. New story announcement! So, some time ago, I saw this in a discord server... ...And I thought, I could totally write that story! So I did. I give you a historical, sci-fi, non-diary story with spy drones shaped like birds and lots of POV switches. Have a cover and blurb: Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
In March of 1850, aliens scanned Earth for new contestants in their games. They found a pirate, a cowboy, a thief and a samurai. With little choice, these four must work together and win as many contests as possible. From the Hymalayas to the Sahara, the depths of the ocean to the dark side of the moon, they must rely on each other and their unique experiences to survive. After all, there¡¯s so much to see on this planet drifting through space¡­
Check it out! First chapter here! I hope you like it! . . . (And don''t worry about the future of the catgirls, I have the first 1/3 of the next volume written already.) Cycle 25 (Admin 6) ¡°It wouldn¡¯t take too long!¡± Admin 6 snapped. ¡°Send a message to every soul in the dungeon saying ¡®what race would you like to be forever¡¯, add a one-minute timeout, auto-tally the answers, and done! We¡¯ve now spent longer arguing about this than it will take to do!¡± ¡°They¡¯ll just choose human or whatever they¡¯ve spent the last few years as,¡± Admin 2 said. ¡°Then at least they¡¯ll have chosen it,¡± 6 said. ¡°And you can ignore it! All I want is for us to ask!¡± ¡°It can¡¯t hurt to ask,¡± Admin 5 shrugged. ¡°We have asked,¡± 4 pointed out. ¡°First question the players got this cycle-¡± 6 cut him off. ¡°Sure, leave a decision that will affect thousands up to sixty people. That¡¯s totally fair.¡± ¡°In the interest of ending this argument and getting on with our jobs,¡± 1 said loudly, ¡°let¡¯s send the questionnaire out. As has been said, it can¡¯t hurt.¡± There was some grumbling as everyone sat down and formed the message. 6 summoned an iced coffee and took a long drink, trying to calm his nerves. He really wasn¡¯t meant to be a full Admin, deciding the fates of hundreds of people. He couldn¡¯t wait to be out. To be down on the world. To be with Emmy. The results came in from his dungeon. Neko was first, with kobold just ahead of yeti. Admin 6 smiled, noticing those were the races he¡¯d put in charge of the amusement park. He selected neko and kobold for his races, then sent it to Admin 1. After a few minutes, after everyone had received and read through their responses, Admin 1 put a list up on the wall. Elves, Dragons Hobgoblins, Orcs Elves, Changelings Fairies, Treants Fairies, Nekos Nekos, Kobolds ¡°So,¡± 1 said, turning to look at the group. ¡°Any arguments here?¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. They all agreed it was a decent list. Admin 6 wondered if it reflected what answers they¡¯d all received, but decided to not ask. 1 nodded. ¡°Good. First, do we mind the size disparity in our races? We¡¯ve been building things to human standard, but dragons are, well, dragons, and fairies are on average half as small as humans.¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t asking everyone their opinions,¡± 3 said, leaning back to glare at 6. ¡°Make them all closer in size,¡± 5 said, interrupting the glare match. ¡°Use changelings as a base and go up or down a small percent from there.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Admins 2 and 4 said together. They spent a few seconds deciding what the difference should be, 6 mostly not hearing as he glared at his screen. ¡°Next,¡± Admin 1 said, making a note of the decision. ¡°Elves, fairies and nekos are duplicates. How do we want to differentiate them?¡± ¡°Elves have fairly standard subraces,¡± Admin 3 said. ¡°I¡¯ll take wood elves; you can choose any other.¡± 1 nodded, making a note. ¡°Wing shape for fairies and ear shape for nekos?¡± 5 suggested. ¡°Wing shape?¡± 4 asked. ¡°Ear shape?¡± 6 asked at the same time. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said. ¡°Rounded and pointed. Or fairies could go with butterfly wings and dragonfly wings. That¡¯d be a bit more distinctive.¡± 4 thought it over, bringing up pictures of insects. ¡°As long as the wings are at least partially translucent, I¡¯ll take butterfly.¡± 5 smiled, then turned to Admin 6. ¡°Serval cats have very rounded ears, while caracals have pointed ears with long ear tufts. They¡¯re very different.¡± ¡°You know a lot about cat ear shapes,¡± 6 decided. ¡°Yes, and?¡± Admin 6 smirked, wondering which Emmy would prefer. Admin 3 scooted his chair back to face 6 better. ¡°We¡¯ll even ask someone who it will affect directly. Which would you like to have, 6?¡± Everyone froze. Admin 6 stared blankly at him, realizing he¡¯d have to change himself to neko next cycle. He had to decide on a magic type, too. And on a place to live. He¡¯d been vaguely aware of this, everyone had been, but he¡¯d never thought of it in such blatant terms. He¡¯d been making choices based on what he thought Emmy would like, not what he¡¯d live with. It wasn¡¯t a secret, but mentioning it, even thinking about it, felt taboo. ¡°Bad form,¡± Admin 1 muttered, shaking his head at 3. 6 drained his coffee. He knew what being neko felt like, and the movement gave him a sensation of phantom ears. ¡°I, umm, I¡¯d prefer pointed ears. And if there¡¯s a difference in tail length, I want the longer one.¡± Admin 5 frowned at him, worried, then turned to 1. ¡°Does that work?¡± ¡°It does,¡± 1 said, writing it down. ¡°Next thing. Should we keep strictly to our races, or ask the Director for permission to make a few people races not our own?¡± Admin 6 barely heard the discussion around him. Things were being decided, but he couldn¡¯t focus. He had to go through everything and make sure he could survive there. He needed to make sure coffee was available. He needed to decide what he¡¯d do for a living. He needed¡­ Emmy. Calvin needed Emmy. Cycle N/A (Hash) There was a golden glow, and Hash found herself in a wide, empty expanse. She glanced up to find nothing but grey, same as last time, but when she looked down- A planet. A beautiful, blue and green globe. There were polar ice caps, deserts, vast forests, long mountain ranges, rivers, everything that made a planet. It looked strange, but felt familiar. ¡°Your new home.¡± Hash looked up to see two women standing a few feet away. One she recognized as Admin 5; she assumed the other was the Director. Finally Hash noticed her group was behind her, standing in a semicircle. ¡°It¡¯s amazing,¡± Hash said, truly impressed. She smiled at Admin 5. ¡°You did a good job.¡± Admin 5 curtsied. ¡°Thank you.¡± The Director smiled, summoning a large table. On it was a map of a continent. ¡°You will begin populating the planet from here. Come, choose which city or area you wish to rule.¡± Hash stepped up to the table, and immediately her eyes were drawn to a perfect city. It was nestled along a river, where a forest turned into plains. Farms stretched around it on the plains¡¯ side, and in the forest there were tiny towns for producing lumber. It would be ideal. She wanted it. All she had to do was point, and it could be hers. She could already picture herself fixing whatever minor problems the Admins had overlooked there. 9 nudged her elbow. Hash closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at the Director. ¡°We would like to decline.¡± Annoyance flashed on the woman¡¯s face. ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°We would like to decline,¡± Hash repeated, glancing at Admin 5. ¡°We would like a different prize.¡± ¡°I see,¡± the Director said slowly. ¡°What would you like? Unlimited magical power? Absurd wealth?¡± Hash pulled a paper out of her inventory and held it out. ¡°Take the bad fortune you were going to give to the losing dungeons and give it to these creatures instead.¡± The Director took the list, watching Hash suspiciously. ¡°You spoke with Admin 6¡¯s group about this, didn¡¯t you?¡± Hash blinked, confused. Lily and Samuel had asked what they chose. Lily had offered a few suggestions; Samuel was making a master list of most hated creatures or something. ¡°Yes, but this is our list. Our choices.¡± ¡°Naturally.¡± The Director scanned the paper, then looked at everyone else in the group. ¡°You all agree? Are you all willing to sign a contract saying this is the reward you choose?¡± Hash nodded and glanced around to make sure everyone else agreed, too. They all did. The Director turned to Admin 5. ¡°Did you know about this?¡± ¡°We knew the players were all making lists of animals they¡¯d wish bad luck on,¡± Admin 5 said. ¡°It¡¯s not the strangest thing they¡¯ve all done.¡± ¡°All of them?¡± the Director asked, turning to look at Hash. ¡°Yes,¡± Admin 5 answered as Hash nodded again. The Director spent a few seconds reading the list, then narrowed her eyes at Hash. ¡°Do you not want to be supreme monarch? Why are you fine with giving up the prize?¡± It was 9 who answered. ¡°You¡¯re giving us a whole new planet to explore, then asking us to stay in one place? No thanks.¡± ¡°One broken place,¡± Fishy added. ¡°Pass.¡± ¡°Ruling a city is a big responsibility,¡± Hash said. ¡°And a city no one is sure will be stable? It would be safer to live in a caravan, traveling from one place to another.¡± There were murmurs of agreement behind her. ¡°Fine,¡± the Director said, clearly holding back anger. ¡°I ask you all sign a form, agreeing that giving bad fortune to these creatures is what you desire as a prize, and then you will be offered a list of non-ruling jobs.¡± Hash smiled, relieved she didn¡¯t have to fight or argue with the woman. ¡°Thank you.¡± Cycle N/A (Admin 5) Admin 5 stood next to the Director, waiting patiently as the Watchers reviewed statistics and reports. This was her third time meeting the Watchers. Incredibly elder people who¡¯d been chosen as Admins back when Earth was young. Their clothes reflected archaic styles, and their accents came from a time before English was a language. They knew so much; had seen so much. And if they approved, Admin 5 would gain their title. She¡¯d become the first Watcher for the new world, able to collect Admins and Directors, working only under the eye of The Eternal. After a few millennia, after promoting some good Watchers, she¡¯d retire as an Ancient, able to do literally anything she wanted. Watcher of the new world would be a lonely position for a few years, until a new generation appeared which she could gather Admins from. Admin 5 didn¡¯t mind. The Director would have minded, and as such was aiming to be one of Earth¡¯s Watchers; a position that came with dozens of subordinates. ¡°What will be the name of the new world?¡± Watcher 1 asked. ¡°Tiros,¡± Admin 5 replied. There were a few traditional names for worlds, and choosing one in a Watchers¡¯ native language would hopefully make them like her. If they liked her, they might help if she ran into problems. Watcher 2 smiled, writing the word down. The group still used pens and paper, while the Admins had all changed to screens and keyboards. Admin 5 decided she wouldn¡¯t be that type of elder being. She¡¯d keep up with whatever the mortals used. ¡°Very well,¡± Watcher 1 said, sitting up. He smiled at her. ¡°We hereby approve your transfer to the position of Watcher 0 of Tiros. May you find peace and happiness in that role.¡± The previous Admin 5 smiled, bowing. ¡°Thank you. I will do my best.¡± ¡°Congratulations,¡± the Director said calmly. ¡°I know you will do an excellent job.¡± ¡°She will,¡± Watcher 2 said. ¡°Unlike you.¡± The Director froze. She slowly turned to face the Watchers. ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡± ¡°You have, honestly, done a terrible job,¡± Watcher 3 said. ¡°You disobeyed your own rules. You made decisions the Admins, as a group, agreed were bad. You removed an Admin¡¯s vocal cords. And you never updated what we approved of as a temporary plan.¡± ¡°It has been over five years,¡± Watcher 1 added. ¡°We agreed to the best plan we could think of in two hours. And then we left the making of a real plan to you and your Admins.¡± The Director stared. ¡°It was a fine plan,¡± she managed. ¡°No,¡± Watcher 2 said flatly. ¡°Under no circumstance is ¡®cover our weaknesses by putting someone insane in power¡¯ a fine plan. Ideally, we expected you to find a way of bolstering your Admin¡¯s abilities to the point they could create functioning cities. Or find people among your souls with the mental fortitude to take a failing city and fix all the problems.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you direct your Admins to search through their souls for people to help them?¡± Watcher 3 asked. The Director didn¡¯t answer. Admin 5 cleared her throat. ¡°We did. Secretly. We kept failing, so finally we asked for volunteers to help.¡± ¡°There, you see?¡± Watcher 1 asked the Director, pointing at Admin 5. ¡°She will do what ought to be done.¡± ¡°She disobeyed my directions is what she did,¡± the Director grumbled. ¡°That¡¯s nothing compared to what Admin 6 did, though.¡± ¡°Ah yes, what did Admin 6 do to warrant the removal of his ability to communicate?¡± Watcher 3 asked. ¡°He entered a relationship with a soul,¡± the Director said. ¡°One of the lesser souls. He told her everything. There was no secret kept from her.¡± Admin 5 rolled her eyes. ¡°In what way was she lesser?¡± Watcher 1 asked. ¡°She wasn¡¯t chosen as a player.¡± ¡°So she wasn¡¯t potentially insane? Her lack of disturbing or concerning traits made her lesser?¡± Watcher 1 clarified. ¡°Well¡­ yes.¡± Watcher 2 was watching Admin 5. ¡°Watcher of Tiros, what do you have to say about this?¡± She carefully kept her face neutral. ¡°The Director removed Admin 6¡¯s voice because he told her the plan and her ban on communication with ¡®lesser¡¯ souls was all incredibly stupid. He repeatedly questioned her authority. I should add, Admin 1 returned his voice within the week.¡± ¡°He what?¡± the Director demanded, her face turning red. ¡°Thank you for informing us,¡± Watcher 1 said. ¡°The rules are clear on what should be done with Admin 6: he must renounce his authority and memories of this place and return to mortality. His soul will not be allowed back into our ranks for another thousand years. I have seen many Admins leave us for love, and I find no shame in it. Even if some call it a punishment. And as for calling a stupid plan stupid, that honesty is something I approve of. We cannot improve if no one points out our idiotic rules. Director 2, you ought to have asked for a vote when he insulted your rules, not mutilated him for speaking his mind.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The Director seethed. ¡°Seeing her attitude, clearly something must be done,¡± Watcher 2 told the other Watchers. ¡°I propose we send her down to Tiros, installing her as queen of the worst-designed city.¡± Watcher 3 smiled. ¡°Surely she is smart enough to fix any problems of her own creation. I propose we remove her access to magic and leave all her memories.¡± ¡°I find that agreeable,¡± Watcher 1 decided. ¡°I propose we set her age to twelve. To remind her of what being young and dismissed is like.¡± All three looked at Admin 5. She took half a step back, not sure what to say. Watcher 1 smiled kindly. ¡°Well, Watcher of Tiros? It is your world. Do you accept or reject our proposals?¡± Admin 5¡­ finally internalized that she wasn¡¯t Admin 5 any more. She was barely 300 years old, and yet she was a Watcher. She had a whole planet to take care of, and all by herself. Watcher of Tiros took a deep breath, standing tall. ¡°I propose we set her age to fourteen. Being six years younger than anyone else alive would be suspicious; four years is more reasonable. We will install her as princess of the biggest and worst-designed city, with a regent until she reaches eighteen. We will remove her access to magic, and allow her to remember this place through dreams.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± The Director backed up. ¡°No! You can¡¯t do this! I¡¯ve worked so hard, I deserve-¡± Watcher 2 cut her off. ¡°What you deserve, Princess Demelza, is to have all your memories removed and be placed as a babe in a slave¡¯s house. You have gone mad with power, so we are being kind by putting you in a position where your madness can have a good effect.¡± ¡°No. Please.¡± She looked at Watcher 3. ¡°We were friends once, Naamah.¡± Watcher of Tiros gasped at the name. Watcher 3 shook her head sadly. ¡°We were friends when I was your Director, and you were an Admin. How many of your Admins are your friends, Demelza? How many people like you?¡± The room went silent. ¡°How¡¯s this,¡± Watcher 1 eventually said. ¡°If you can produce one person willing to say they consider you a friend, we will find a different punishment.¡± The Director looked at the Watcher of Tiros. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± the Watcher of Tiros said. ¡°You always had to be right. In control. You never gave us any leeway. You treated Admin 6 too harshly.¡± The Director looked away. Then up at Watcher 1. ¡°Anyone? Any soul at all?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he agreed. ¡°May we summon Player 606?¡± He flipped through a booklet. ¡°A player named¡­ Nikki?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Watcher of Tiros wanted to ask if she was absolutely sure about that. Of all the players, the Director could have at least chosen someone who would use this for blackmail. But then, maybe that was the reason she wanted Nikki. The chef would never think to blackmail anyone. And her goal in life was to befriend every living creature. A moment later, the green-haired neko popped into the room. She was wearing an apron, and had flour smudged on a cheek. Nikki looked around briefly, then smiled at the three Watchers behind the long desk. ¡°Hi!¡± ¡°Greetings,¡± Watcher 2 said. ¡°We have brought you here to determine if you would consider someone a friend.¡± ¡°Probably,¡± Nikki said, completely sincere. ¡°I hope everyone is my friend. Or at least a friendly acquaintance. Even the monsters. Except slimes; I don¡¯t like slimes.¡± ¡°How nice,¡± Watcher 3 said. She motioned to the Director. ¡°Would you consider her a friend? Do you like her?¡± Nikki turned. She saw the Director. And everyone saw the conflict on her face. The Director smiled pleadingly. ¡°No,¡± Nikki finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Watcher 1 smiled gently. ¡°May we ask why not?¡± ¡°She-¡± Nikki looked directly at the Director. ¡°You never apologized for turning Avi into a kobold that one time. And you took away my food inventory. I can¡¯t forgive you for that, even if you did give it back.¡± ¡°Avi?¡± Watcher 3 asked. Watcher of Tiros answered. ¡°Her husband. The incident where the Director turned a player into a mob mid-cycle without warning.¡± ¡°Thank you. Nikki, do you know anyone who would consider the Director their friend?¡± Watcher 2 asked. ¡°No,¡± the chef replied. ¡°She¡¯s worse than slimes.¡± Silence. Complete silence. ¡°That¡¯s hardly an insult,¡± the Director said with a desperate laugh. ¡°I quite like sli-¡± ¡°You¡¯re mean!¡± Nikki snapped. ¡°You figure out what people love and take it from them! I tried to be nice, even after you called Avi pathetic! I gave you cupcakes and pizza and chicken nuggets! And then you took my food away, right when Kimi needed my help most! You learned that the Sams¡¯ sister was back in our old dungeon and stopped them from messaging each other just because they threw a party! I- I don¡¯t want to say anyone is too mean to have friends. I want everyone to be nice and happy. But you don¡¯t want to be happy. You just want everyone else to be miserable.¡± Admin 5 desperately wished she¡¯d been able to record that. Admin 6 would have loved that speech. As it was, she had to hold herself back from clapping and cheering. She couldn¡¯t keep in the huge, gleeful grin, though. Watcher 1 tsked, shaking his head solemnly. ¡°You were mean to someone who gave you cupcakes. How dare you, Demelza.¡± ¡°They were clearly a bribe!¡± the Director yelled. ¡°I told you,¡± Nikki said softly, genuine hurt in her voice. ¡°They would have been taken out of my inventory at cycle reset, and I didn¡¯t want them to go to waste.¡± The three Watchers shook their heads in disappointment. ¡°They were very delicious,¡± Watcher of Tiros told the chef, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°Thank you for giving them to the Director, even if she didn¡¯t eat any.¡± Nikki smiled at her, tears brimming in her eyes. ¡°It is settled, then,¡± Watcher 2 declared. ¡°No one who repays cupcakes with hostility is worthy of being among our ranks. Demelza, you will be sent to Tiros, into the agreed-upon position.¡± ¡°No, you-¡± With a wave of Watcher 1¡¯s hand, she was gone. He gazed down at the green-haired catgirl. ¡°Enough of that. Nikki. What would you like your life to be like in the new world?¡± Nikki hesitated, then looked at them seriously. ¡°Well, I¡¯ve thought about this a lot, so if you really want to know, we¡¯ll be here a while.¡± ¡°I like this girl,¡± Watcher 3 decided. ¡°She¡¯s honest. We don¡¯t mind listening for ¡®a while¡¯.¡± ¡°Ok, then, here,¡± Nikki said, beaming as she pulled a cake with pink frosting out of her inventory. She slid it onto the Watcher¡¯s desk. ¡°You can eat this while I talk!¡± The three smiled, and the Watcher of Tiros knew all Nikki¡¯s dreams were about to come true. Cycle N/A (Last Page)
1 (A1)GreenHexagon, HazelRune, Xero, Uaillmhian, Ildeuz, Szeken, Slurpgurt, Gurtslurp, FischFingah, Tru (A2) Moose, Bacon, Nani, RustBucket, Rororonin, BlueRains, Lue, Vera, Bismuth, Nicolae (A3) NoobKiller420, LordGloomShadow, Caves, Dragon, Legend, FireKnight, Aaron, Anahar, TeratomaticRock, Remisschip, Beepity (A4) Steel, Fire, Frog, Ringo, Octavius, Keravnos, MimicsBane, Rose, ZomFlora, Waltix (A5) 9, Hash, CuteCat, Amsice, Icehawk, H¨¦raut, Desidrae, Mulberry, Edison, FishyMiner (A6) Me!!!, Avi, Kimi, Y, Aya, Mika, Samuel, Samurai, Staab, Lily 60
2 0
3 Grim, Xander, Soran, Everit, Alex, Zeke, Damon, Bane 8
4 Amy, Red, Bitey, King, Tails, Bluetooth 6
5 Zaila, Zain, Zaina, Zaire, Zajac, Zakaria, Zakhar, Zaki, Zakiya, Zakuro, Zakwani, Zale, Zalika, Zalman, Zalor, Zaltana, Zaman, Zamir, Zamora, Zan 20
6 0
7 0
8 0
9 0
10 Ala, Ele, Ili, Olo, Ulu,Yly 6
11 Lex, Tim, Arby, Kelly 4
12 0
13 0
14 0
15 Jenny AKA Painbringer the Gold 1
16 0
17 0
18 0
19 0
20 Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Grace, Bliss 6
21 0
22 Jessie, Marion, Alva, Ollie, Cleo, Kerry, Carey, Tommie, Sammie, Jamie, Kris, Robbie, Tracy, Merrill, Noel, Rene, Johnnie, Ariel, Jan, Casey, Jackie, Jodie, Rene, Darian, Milan, Jaylin, Devan, Channing, Gerry, Monroe, Arbor, Ash, Charlie, Drew, Ellis, Everest, Jett, Lowen, Moss, Oakley, Onyx, Phoenix, Ridley, Remy, Robin, Royal, Sage, Scout, Tatum, WrenThe author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. 50
23 0
24 Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta, Echo 5
25 0
26 0
27 Onyx, Agate, Jasper, Ruby, Flint, Granite, Opal, Obsidian, Amethyst 9
28 0
29 0
30 Scarlet, Amber, Violet, Coral, Skye, Jade 6
31 Rusty 1
32 Spike, Spinny, Spiff, Spirit, Spice, Spigot, Spinach, Spit, Spillikin, Spine, Spite, Spiccato 12
33 Abigail, Margaret, Josephine, Eleanor, Ophelia 5
34 Tody, Steve, Carol, Diana, Barry, Matt, Sue, Hal 8
35 Welk, Bjorn, Harek, Jorunn, Poyda, Dagny 6
36 0
37 Big, Small, Cat, Dog, Cheap, Expensive,Deep, Shallow, Down, Up, Early, Late, Easy, Difficult, Far, Near, Fast, Slow, Fat, Thin, Full, Empty, Good, Bad, Happy, Sad, Heavy, Light, Here, There, High, Low, Hot, Cold, In, Out, Interesting, Boring, Light, Dark, Long, Short, Many, Few, New, Old, Open, Close, Rich, Poor, Right, Left, Safe, Dangerous, Smooth, Rough, Soft, Hard, Strong, Weak, Tall, Short, Thick, Thin, Tight, Loose, Warm, Cool, Wet, Dry, Wide, Narrow, Night, Day, Junior, Senior, Better, Worse, Dead, Alive, Pass, Fail, True, False, Hot, Cold, Push, Pull, Ancient, Modern, Calm, Chaotic, Bold, Timid, Capture, Release, Distant, Near, Even, Odd, Eminent, Unknown, Embrace, Reject, Employ, Dismiss, Future, Past, Idle, Active, Incite, Quell, Jump, Plunge, Lend, Borrow, Liquid, Solid, Loose, Tight, Loud, Quiet, Mend, Break, Naive, Sophisticated, Plentiful, Scarce, Receive, Send 130
38 Siri, Bear, Linda, Floofles, Balto, Wolfie McWolfpants 6
39 Dusky, Keleru, Carbn, Lythie, Bmikah, Tlou, Koakai, Tyrin 8
40 Dora, Lissa, Tonya, Usha, Sheba, Lyra 6
41 Hielo, Oighear, Jalid, Aiseu, Led, Riti, Hau, Ijs, Iqhwa, Barafu 10
42 0
43 0
44 0
45 Eldrin, Nericeran, Tamnaeth, Wysavaris, Eldaerenth, Krisrel, Lhoris, Keybalar,Tanathil, Nornorin 10
46 Puff, Whiskers, Felix, Oscar, Smudge, Bscuit, Sylvester, Fluffy, Sasha, Socks, Oreo, Coco 12
47 Lucy 1
48 Qoarluth, Choinoirth, Zodiarth, Froalian, Vuteirth, Pudroat 6
49 Walsh ''Pieces of Eight'', Eldred ''Marooner'', Saxe ''Ghostly'', Willis ''Naive'', Jesse ''Three-Teeth'', Omie ''Blunder'', Jamie, Harvey, Martin, Rondy, Fawn, Tyniece, Keisha, Lauren, Felix, Gian, Juan, Sofia, Camila, Natalie, Rhaelenia, Neaseis, Eluthyia, Neripeia, Adremere, Eireneva, Salodeia, Eireve, Sereima, Jennishell 30
50 Gigi, Misty, Mia, Risa, Patty, Kelly 6
51 0
52 0
53 0
54 Lewis AKA Bonecrusher the Black, A, Ace, Ada, AJ, Al, Ali, Alv, Amy, An, Ani, Arb, Ari, Ash, Ava, Ax, B, Bam, Bea, Bec, Ben, Bo, Bob, Bri, Bro, Bry, C, Cal, Can, Cap, Car, Cas, Cat, Cla, Cle, Col, Coy, Cre, Cru, Dai, Dan, Dar, Das, Dax, Del, Dev, Di, Dre, E, Ed, Eli, Ell, Elo, Eme, Eon, Eva, Eve, Fay, Fi, For, Fre, Ger, Gil, Gus, H, Hal, Han, Hi, Hol, Ian, Ind, Ing, Iso, Ivy, Jac, Jak, Jam, Jan, Jax, Jay, Jef, Jes, Jet, JJ, Jo, Jod, Joe, Jon, Jos, Joy, Jud, Jun, Kai, Kay, Ken, Ker, Ki, Kim, Kip, Kir, Kri, Kyl, L, Lai, Lak, Lee, Leo, Lev, Lia, Liv, Low, Luc, Lun, M, Mar, Mat, Max, Meg, Mer, Mia, Mil, Mo, Mon, Mos, Nat, Ned, Nev, Nic, Nim, Noe, O, Oak, Ola, Oll, Ony, Ora, Oz, Pam, Pau, Pen, Pep, Pho, Ra, Ray, Rei, Rem, Ren, Rex, Rhy, Rid, Rio, Ro, Rob, Rom, Ron, Ros, Roy, Sag, Sam, Sco, Sea, Set, Sha, Sue, Sun, Sy, Taj, Tat, Taz, Ted, The, Tif, Tim, TJ, Tom, Tra, Tro, Tru, Ty, Uma, Val, Van, Ver, Vi, Vic, Wes, Wil, Wol, Wre, X, Xyl, Z, Zac, Zan, Ze, Zek, Zia, Zoe, Zol 199
55 Veronica, Stacy, Melody 3
56 Hark, Praar, Fuiq, Strez, Reng, Bragiat, Blotresb, Krirzerd, Hurbekt, Clilaarm, Pheelmia, Mort, Unk, Stiaft, Weehxe, Vrehus, Bomzulx, Gaasvuth, Swalaath, Cralbiez, Glor, Lysz, Bynk, Xil, Greal, Cadrorm, Josvar, Kroibank, Hesionk, Chiomuisb, Kenqea, Jift, Stila, Fraart, Chinsdi, Uhees, Lalsohx, Thuplank, Woklianx, Throheefia, Stur, Clix, Xots, Kliekx, Cryrm, Dihduirk, Ravriank, Grisigz, Krultald, Giagrialb, Grug, Wruif, Gnogsi, Friga, Truhx, Brabrios, Qumrethia, Deanath, Seekvelsee, Wraasoig, Coits, Drec, Haasz, Lird, Oild, Criekzeaq, Eguzz, Bleegsiold, Absats, Gligat, Crasz, Friossea, Sefta, Tozz, Fruilsi, Afaagsia, Pussoinxee, Ielkian, Geatmioszai, Vineenq 80
57 0
58 0
59 0
60 Athena, Calliope, Pandora, Iris, Nyx, Aphrodite 6
Cycle 28 (Director) The Director pulled Athena into her office. The previous catgirl looked around, a wide smile growing on her face. The changeling NPC didn¡¯t look alarmed or frightened in the slightest. And more notably, she looked almost identical to the Director herself. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± the Director ordered, motioning to the chair across from her. Athena tilted her head, sharp eyes taking the Director in. ¡°Athena, take a seat,¡± she repeated, copying the voice and accent perfectly as she sat down. ¡°Do that again and I¡¯ll change your name to Echo,¡± the Director said, a tiny bit amused. The changeling¡¯s lips moved silently for a few seconds, then she smiled again. ¡°Un-der-s-tood.¡± She was copying sounds the Director had made. This annoyed the Director. And then Athena changed. Ever so slightly. The shape of her chin, the shading in her eyes, until she was an exact copy of the Director. With her hair down and wearing different clothes and gloves, but still identical. The Director was no longer amused. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°No,¡± her copy said, smiling confidently. Allowing changelings had been a terrible idea. ¡°I assume you¡¯re doing this for a purpose. Would you care to explain what that purpose is?¡± ¡°Atten-ch-on,¡± Athena said. ¡°You did not respond to my messages.¡± ¡°And why should I respond to someone so far beneath me?¡± the Director asked, irked. ¡°Why should I respond to a child acting out for attention?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not beneath you,¡± Athena said, slowly getting to her feet. ¡°You have given me the tools to replace you without anyone noticing.¡± ¡°And what tools might those be?¡±The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Athena brought her gloved fist in front of her, opened her hand, and blew a mass of grey dust into the Director¡¯s face. The Director inhaled, then coughed at the citrusy burnt plastic smell. She wiped the coarse dust off her face, tasting it on her lips. ¡°What is this?¡± In reply, her copy held out a colorful pinwheel and spun it. The Director frowned, strangely entranced. And then her eyes widened as she decided it was absolutely the most fascinating thing she¡¯d ever seen. She got up from her chair, taking it. After a few seconds she moved to sit down again, and discovered she was already in her chair. She was doing something on a screen that looked like work, so it was probably fine. She spun the pinwheel again. * * * * * Athena smirked, glancing at the Director. It had taken her group three days and the maximum of duplication spells allowed to figure out this combination of effects. One of the orange spells was an ¡°activate on touch¡± spell. When used with a pink ¡°enthrall¡± spell, it forced anyone hit with, say, a rock, to be captivated by whatever they focused on next. Powdering that rock transferred the spells¡¯ effects into its dust. And incidentally, inhaling dust from the Floor 12 rocks made the drug take hold in seconds. The Director would be playing with that pinwheel for at least three hours. Giving Athena plenty of time to do anything she wanted. If this opportunity had been given to her fifty cycles ago, she would have opened all doors and adjusted mobs¡¯ power levels to make them unkillable. Ten cycles ago, and she would have made the players as weak as she could manage. But this close to the end, none of that mattered. Instead, she messaged Admin 3 as the Director and told him she was going to personally decide the fate of a few of his souls. She found the biggest city on the world where they¡¯d be sent and installed herself as queen, with her sisters as her council. Then she found certain players in her old dungeon and split them up into the prisons of various countries. Athena found her friends in the old dungeon and increased their starting wealth by a few zeros each. She found her friends in the master dungeon and increased their starting wealth, too. She broke changeling¡¯s magic restrictions, allowing herself full access to all magic. Then she gave herself Admin privileges in the dungeon. Athena made a few more changes, keeping an eye on the Director. When the woman began showing signs of boredom with the pinwheel, she sent out a message.
From: The Director
To: All Players
Subject: Weapons
Hello, Next cycle I plan to remove all weapons from the dungeon. Please prepare yourselves mentally and emotionally. Thank you, Director
Replies started filtering in as Athena got up and stretched. There. That should distract everyone long enough for her changes to get lost in the logs. She smiled, sending herself back to Floor 60. Cycle 28 (Admin 5) Admin 5 took a deep breath, summoning Hash to the Void. The woman looked around in surprise, the usual reaction, and finally turned to look apprehensively at 5. ¡°Greetings,¡± Admin 5 said, trying to remain formal. ¡°I need to speak to you about what will happen when we reach the end of Cycle 30.¡± Hash smiled. ¡°We¡¯re gonna win, yeah?¡± Admin 5 nodded slowly, frowning. Hash noticed her hesitation. ¡°Isn¡¯t¡­ that a good thing?¡± ¡°You seem to be the most level-headed of my players,¡± 5 said. ¡°As such, I need you to convince everyone to not accept the prize.¡± ¡°What? Why?¡± Hash demanded. ¡°There are two reasons. The first has to do with the nature of the reward. We¡­¡± Admin 5 stopped, looking around to make sure they were alone before explaining. ¡°My group of Admins, us, we don¡¯t know how to build cities. We build planets. We know geography and tectonic plates and river systems and how ocean currents affect global temperature. We don¡¯t know how to get food and water to several thousand people in a small area. We don¡¯t know how plumbing works. We haven¡¯t used money in so long we don¡¯t know how economies run. It was never something we were supposed to be doing. We¡¯re trying our best, but there are millions of moving pieces and we only understand about a dozen.¡± Hash was looking uncomfortable, so Admin 5 summoned two chairs. They sat down, facing each other. ¡°Simply put,¡± 5 continued, ¡°the planet you¡¯re going to is stable. The world is not. Things are going to break; cities will probably lack some vital components. The Director decided to place people in charge who were either insane enough that no one would question the city breaking, or people with the mental fortitude to see problems and fix them before anyone riots. Either way, that would be people who could spend years doing the same gruesome, thankless task endlessly.¡± Hash¡¯s face was pale. ¡°So we¡¯re set up to fail.¡± ¡°Essentially, yes.¡± The orange-eyed neko got up and began pacing. ¡°I wondered how beating a dungeon would make us qualified to run a city or kingdom. This¡­ I hate it, but I get it.¡± ¡°The second reason I¡¯d like you to refuse the prize is to ask for a different one,¡± 5 said. ¡°As it stands, there will be twelve races and subraces on the new planet. Six, belonging to the top three Admins, will receive good fortune. And six will receive bad fortune. Everyone who receives bad fortune will be doomed to failure. I would like you to request, in exchange for the prize, that the bad fortune be put on animals instead of people.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Fortune?¡± ¡°Bad¡­ luck. Karma. Cosmic energy. ¡­Vibes.¡± Hash nodded slowly, taking her seat again. ¡°What animals?¡± ¡°Any animal you dislike. Snakes, squids, ducks, penguins, cows, frogs, koalas, anything. All I want is for the bad fortune to not go to people.¡± ¡°Wait, on our old planet, who had the bad fortune?¡± Admin 5 tried to remember. ¡°Humans, housecats and cockroaches had the biggest amount of good fortune. The bad fortune¡­ There was a type of saber-toothed cat that developed jaw bones which made it nearly impossible for them to eat. There was a mini elephant that¡­ was just too small. There were a few others, but the last creature with negative fortune to go extinct was the dodo.¡± ¡°Cockroaches?¡± Hash repeated. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Ok, I¡¯m giving all the bad fortune to cockroaches, mosquitoes, spiders, centipedes, scorpions and¡­ and gnats,¡± Hash decided. Admin 5 smiled. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t argue with that list, but the Director might. She might insist on specific types of each, like black widow spider. Or she might insist the list include a few mammals. So start with that, then specify and expand so she can¡¯t find any reason to deny you.¡± ¡°Understood,¡± Hash said, drumming her fingers on her knees as she thought. After a few seconds of silence, Admin 5 cleared her throat. ¡°So, will you decline the reward?¡± ¡°The reward of being turned into a scapegoat? Yeah, not taking that,¡± Hash said. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to my group about it.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°But, if we don¡¯t accept being leaders, who will the job go to? What will we do instead?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± Admin 5 admitted. ¡°But I believe the Director will add those jobs to the list of jobs, and whoever wants to take it can. Admins can recommend people for certain positions, but it¡¯s up to those people to accept or reject them.¡± ¡°So the job will fall to someone who doesn¡¯t know?¡± ¡°To someone who we think can handle it,¡± 5 clarified. ¡°As opposed to someone who doesn¡¯t know and whose failure is expected. Like, I think you would be a good ruler; I¡¯m going to recommend you. And in the bigger mob groups, usually there¡¯s someone who makes most of the decisions. In most player groups of three or more, there¡¯s a leader. So you declining would allow us to put people in leadership positions a little more strategically.¡± Hash nodded again. ¡°Ok. But¡­ if you don¡¯t usually build cities, why are you? Why are we all here, anyway? What happened-¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you,¡± Admin 5 said sharply, glancing around again. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be talking to you at all. Please, don¡¯t ask any more questions.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Hash turned in her seat, looking behind her. ¡°Ok.¡± Admin 5 sat up straight, speaking slowly, distinctly. ¡°I have not told you anything about the dungeons or the nature of souls. I will not answer any questions about death or Earth. I have only told you about fortune and the world to which you will be sent after Cycle 30.¡± ¡°R-right,¡± Hash said, eyes darting around. ¡°I will now return you to the Master Dungeon, where you have permission to discuss what I have told you with the rest of your group,¡± Admin 5 said. Hash hesitated. ¡°Thank you?¡± ¡°You are welcome,¡± she said, and sent the woman back to her cabin. Admin 5 took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly, running the conversation back in her mind. She didn¡¯t think she¡¯d said anything forbidden. Hoping it was fine, she teleported back to the office. All the Admins watched as she took her seat. ¡°She agreed,¡± 5 said. ¡°There was no problem.¡± Everyone relaxed. New story announcement! So, some time ago, I saw this in a discord server... ...And I thought, I could totally write that story! So I did. I give you a historical, sci-fi, non-diary story with spy drones shaped like birds and lots of POV switches. Have a cover and blurb: If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
In March of 1850, aliens scanned Earth for new contestants in their games. They found a pirate, a cowboy, a thief and a samurai. With little choice, these four must work together and win as many contests as possible. From the Hymalayas to the Sahara, the depths of the ocean to the dark side of the moon, they must rely on each other and their unique experiences to survive. After all, there¡¯s so much to see on this planet drifting through space¡­
Check it out! First chapter here! I hope you like it! . . . (And don''t worry about the future of the catgirls, I have the first 1/3 of the next volume written already.) Cycle N/A (Messages) Attention! We have reached the end of Cycle 30! All non-players will be put in stasis in ten minutes, and then you will be transferred to your new homes. People who are touching when the stasis takes hold will be placed in close proximity to each other on the new planet. Say your farewells and prepare yourselves.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. * * * * * Congratulations to Admin 5¡¯s group for winning the Master Dungeon! As promised, they get their choice of rulership jobs in the new world. After their choices are made, all other players will receive a list of jobs and locations they may choose from. Your Admins have adjusted the lists to fit each player individually, so not all jobs are available to all people. After making your choice, you will be put into stasis, then sent to your new homes. May fortune favor you in your new lives! Cycle N/A (Hash) There was a golden glow, and Hash found herself in a wide, empty expanse. She glanced up to find nothing but grey, same as last time, but when she looked down- A planet. A beautiful, blue and green globe. There were polar ice caps, deserts, vast forests, long mountain ranges, rivers, everything that made a planet. It looked strange, but felt familiar. ¡°Your new home.¡± Hash looked up to see two women standing a few feet away. One she recognized as Admin 5; she assumed the other was the Director. Finally Hash noticed her group was behind her, standing in a semicircle. ¡°It¡¯s amazing,¡± Hash said, truly impressed. She smiled at Admin 5. ¡°You did a good job.¡± Admin 5 curtsied. ¡°Thank you.¡± The Director smiled, summoning a large table. On it was a map of a continent. ¡°You will begin populating the planet from here. Come, choose which city or area you wish to rule.¡± Hash stepped up to the table, and immediately her eyes were drawn to a perfect city. It was nestled along a river, where a forest turned into plains. Farms stretched around it on the plains¡¯ side, and in the forest there were tiny towns for producing lumber. It would be ideal. She wanted it. All she had to do was point, and it could be hers. She could already picture herself fixing whatever minor problems the Admins had overlooked there. 9 nudged her elbow. Hash closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at the Director. ¡°We would like to decline.¡± Annoyance flashed on the woman¡¯s face. ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°We would like to decline,¡± Hash repeated, glancing at Admin 5. ¡°We would like a different prize.¡± ¡°I see,¡± the Director said slowly. ¡°What would you like? Unlimited magical power? Absurd wealth?¡± Hash pulled a paper out of her inventory and held it out. ¡°Take the bad fortune you were going to give to the losing dungeons and give it to these creatures instead.¡± The Director took the list, watching Hash suspiciously. ¡°You spoke with Admin 6¡¯s group about this, didn¡¯t you?¡± Hash blinked, confused. Lily and Samuel had asked what they chose. Lily had offered a few suggestions; Samuel was making a master list of most hated creatures or something. ¡°Yes, but this is our list. Our choices.¡± ¡°Naturally.¡± The Director scanned the paper, then looked at everyone else in the group. ¡°You all agree? Are you all willing to sign a contract saying this is the reward you choose?¡± Hash nodded and glanced around to make sure everyone else agreed, too. They all did. The Director turned to Admin 5. ¡°Did you know about this?¡± ¡°We knew the players were all making lists of animals they¡¯d wish bad luck on,¡± Admin 5 said. ¡°It¡¯s not the strangest thing they¡¯ve all done.¡± ¡°All of them?¡± the Director asked, turning to look at Hash. ¡°Yes,¡± Admin 5 answered as Hash nodded again. The Director spent a few seconds reading the list, then narrowed her eyes at Hash. ¡°Do you not want to be supreme monarch? Why are you fine with giving up the prize?¡± It was 9 who answered. ¡°You¡¯re giving us a whole new planet to explore, then asking us to stay in one place? No thanks.¡± ¡°One broken place,¡± Fishy added. ¡°Pass.¡± ¡°Ruling a city is a big responsibility,¡± Hash said. ¡°And a city no one is sure will be stable? It would be safer to live in a caravan, traveling from one place to another.¡± There were murmurs of agreement behind her. ¡°Fine,¡± the Director said, clearly holding back anger. ¡°I ask you all sign a form, agreeing that giving bad fortune to these creatures is what you desire as a prize, and then you will be offered a list of non-ruling jobs.¡± Hash smiled, relieved she didn¡¯t have to fight or argue with the woman. ¡°Thank you.¡± Cycle N/A (Admin 5) Admin 5 stood next to the Director, waiting patiently as the Watchers reviewed statistics and reports. This was her third time meeting the Watchers. Incredibly elder people who¡¯d been chosen as Admins back when Earth was young. Their clothes reflected archaic styles, and their accents came from a time before English was a language. They knew so much; had seen so much. And if they approved, Admin 5 would gain their title. She¡¯d become the first Watcher for the new world, able to collect Admins and Directors, working only under the eye of The Eternal. After a few millennia, after promoting some good Watchers, she¡¯d retire as an Ancient, able to do literally anything she wanted. Watcher of the new world would be a lonely position for a few years, until a new generation appeared which she could gather Admins from. Admin 5 didn¡¯t mind. The Director would have minded, and as such was aiming to be one of Earth¡¯s Watchers; a position that came with dozens of subordinates. ¡°What will be the name of the new world?¡± Watcher 1 asked. ¡°Tiros,¡± Admin 5 replied. There were a few traditional names for worlds, and choosing one in a Watchers¡¯ native language would hopefully make them like her. If they liked her, they might help if she ran into problems. Watcher 2 smiled, writing the word down. The group still used pens and paper, while the Admins had all changed to screens and keyboards. Admin 5 decided she wouldn¡¯t be that type of elder being. She¡¯d keep up with whatever the mortals used. ¡°Very well,¡± Watcher 1 said, sitting up. He smiled at her. ¡°We hereby approve your transfer to the position of Watcher 0 of Tiros. May you find peace and happiness in that role.¡± The previous Admin 5 smiled, bowing. ¡°Thank you. I will do my best.¡± ¡°Congratulations,¡± the Director said calmly. ¡°I know you will do an excellent job.¡± ¡°She will,¡± Watcher 2 said. ¡°Unlike you.¡± The Director froze. She slowly turned to face the Watchers. ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡± ¡°You have, honestly, done a terrible job,¡± Watcher 3 said. ¡°You disobeyed your own rules. You made decisions the Admins, as a group, agreed were bad. You removed an Admin¡¯s vocal cords. And you never updated what we approved of as a temporary plan.¡± ¡°It has been over five years,¡± Watcher 1 added. ¡°We agreed to the best plan we could think of in two hours. And then we left the making of a real plan to you and your Admins.¡± The Director stared. ¡°It was a fine plan,¡± she managed. ¡°No,¡± Watcher 2 said flatly. ¡°Under no circumstance is ¡®cover our weaknesses by putting someone insane in power¡¯ a fine plan. Ideally, we expected you to find a way of bolstering your Admin¡¯s abilities to the point they could create functioning cities. Or find people among your souls with the mental fortitude to take a failing city and fix all the problems.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you direct your Admins to search through their souls for people to help them?¡± Watcher 3 asked. The Director didn¡¯t answer. Admin 5 cleared her throat. ¡°We did. Secretly. We kept failing, so finally we asked for volunteers to help.¡± ¡°There, you see?¡± Watcher 1 asked the Director, pointing at Admin 5. ¡°She will do what ought to be done.¡± ¡°She disobeyed my directions is what she did,¡± the Director grumbled. ¡°That¡¯s nothing compared to what Admin 6 did, though.¡± ¡°Ah yes, what did Admin 6 do to warrant the removal of his ability to communicate?¡± Watcher 3 asked. ¡°He entered a relationship with a soul,¡± the Director said. ¡°One of the lesser souls. He told her everything. There was no secret kept from her.¡± Admin 5 rolled her eyes. ¡°In what way was she lesser?¡± Watcher 1 asked. ¡°She wasn¡¯t chosen as a player.¡± ¡°So she wasn¡¯t potentially insane? Her lack of disturbing or concerning traits made her lesser?¡± Watcher 1 clarified. ¡°Well¡­ yes.¡± Watcher 2 was watching Admin 5. ¡°Watcher of Tiros, what do you have to say about this?¡± She carefully kept her face neutral. ¡°The Director removed Admin 6¡¯s voice because he told her the plan and her ban on communication with ¡®lesser¡¯ souls was all incredibly stupid. He repeatedly questioned her authority. I should add, Admin 1 returned his voice within the week.¡± ¡°He what?¡± the Director demanded, her face turning red. ¡°Thank you for informing us,¡± Watcher 1 said. ¡°The rules are clear on what should be done with Admin 6: he must renounce his authority and memories of this place and return to mortality. His soul will not be allowed back into our ranks for another thousand years. I have seen many Admins leave us for love, and I find no shame in it. Even if some call it a punishment. And as for calling a stupid plan stupid, that honesty is something I approve of. We cannot improve if no one points out our idiotic rules. Director 2, you ought to have asked for a vote when he insulted your rules, not mutilated him for speaking his mind.¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The Director seethed. ¡°Seeing her attitude, clearly something must be done,¡± Watcher 2 told the other Watchers. ¡°I propose we send her down to Tiros, installing her as queen of the worst-designed city.¡± Watcher 3 smiled. ¡°Surely she is smart enough to fix any problems of her own creation. I propose we remove her access to magic and leave all her memories.¡± ¡°I find that agreeable,¡± Watcher 1 decided. ¡°I propose we set her age to twelve. To remind her of what being young and dismissed is like.¡± All three looked at Admin 5. She took half a step back, not sure what to say. Watcher 1 smiled kindly. ¡°Well, Watcher of Tiros? It is your world. Do you accept or reject our proposals?¡± Admin 5¡­ finally internalized that she wasn¡¯t Admin 5 any more. She was barely 300 years old, and yet she was a Watcher. She had a whole planet to take care of, and all by herself. Watcher of Tiros took a deep breath, standing tall. ¡°I propose we set her age to fourteen. Being six years younger than anyone else alive would be suspicious; four years is more reasonable. We will install her as princess of the biggest and worst-designed city, with a regent until she reaches eighteen. We will remove her access to magic, and allow her to remember this place through dreams.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± ¡°Accepted.¡± The Director backed up. ¡°No! You can¡¯t do this! I¡¯ve worked so hard, I deserve-¡± Watcher 2 cut her off. ¡°What you deserve, Princess Demelza, is to have all your memories removed and be placed as a babe in a slave¡¯s house. You have gone mad with power, so we are being kind by putting you in a position where your madness can have a good effect.¡± ¡°No. Please.¡± She looked at Watcher 3. ¡°We were friends once, Naamah.¡± Watcher of Tiros gasped at the name. Watcher 3 shook her head sadly. ¡°We were friends when I was your Director, and you were an Admin. How many of your Admins are your friends, Demelza? How many people like you?¡± The room went silent. ¡°How¡¯s this,¡± Watcher 1 eventually said. ¡°If you can produce one person willing to say they consider you a friend, we will find a different punishment.¡± The Director looked at the Watcher of Tiros. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± the Watcher of Tiros said. ¡°You always had to be right. In control. You never gave us any leeway. You treated Admin 6 too harshly.¡± The Director looked away. Then up at Watcher 1. ¡°Anyone? Any soul at all?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he agreed. ¡°May we summon Player 606?¡± He flipped through a booklet. ¡°A player named¡­ Nikki?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Watcher of Tiros wanted to ask if she was absolutely sure about that. Of all the players, the Director could have at least chosen someone who would use this for blackmail. But then, maybe that was the reason she wanted Nikki. The chef would never think to blackmail anyone. And her goal in life was to befriend every living creature. A moment later, the green-haired neko popped into the room. She was wearing an apron, and had flour smudged on a cheek. Nikki looked around briefly, then smiled at the three Watchers behind the long desk. ¡°Hi!¡± ¡°Greetings,¡± Watcher 2 said. ¡°We have brought you here to determine if you would consider someone a friend.¡± ¡°Probably,¡± Nikki said, completely sincere. ¡°I hope everyone is my friend. Or at least a friendly acquaintance. Even the monsters. Except slimes; I don¡¯t like slimes.¡± ¡°How nice,¡± Watcher 3 said. She motioned to the Director. ¡°Would you consider her a friend? Do you like her?¡± Nikki turned. She saw the Director. And everyone saw the conflict on her face. The Director smiled pleadingly. ¡°No,¡± Nikki finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Watcher 1 smiled gently. ¡°May we ask why not?¡± ¡°She-¡± Nikki looked directly at the Director. ¡°You never apologized for turning Avi into a kobold that one time. And you took away my food inventory. I can¡¯t forgive you for that, even if you did give it back.¡± ¡°Avi?¡± Watcher 3 asked. Watcher of Tiros answered. ¡°Her husband. The incident where the Director turned a player into a mob mid-cycle without warning.¡± ¡°Thank you. Nikki, do you know anyone who would consider the Director their friend?¡± Watcher 2 asked. ¡°No,¡± the chef replied. ¡°She¡¯s worse than slimes.¡± Silence. Complete silence. ¡°That¡¯s hardly an insult,¡± the Director said with a desperate laugh. ¡°I quite like sli-¡± ¡°You¡¯re mean!¡± Nikki snapped. ¡°You figure out what people love and take it from them! I tried to be nice, even after you called Avi pathetic! I gave you cupcakes and pizza and chicken nuggets! And then you took my food away, right when Kimi needed my help most! You learned that the Sams¡¯ sister was back in our old dungeon and stopped them from messaging each other just because they threw a party! I- I don¡¯t want to say anyone is too mean to have friends. I want everyone to be nice and happy. But you don¡¯t want to be happy. You just want everyone else to be miserable.¡± Admin 5 desperately wished she¡¯d been able to record that. Admin 6 would have loved that speech. As it was, she had to hold herself back from clapping and cheering. She couldn¡¯t keep in the huge, gleeful grin, though. Watcher 1 tsked, shaking his head solemnly. ¡°You were mean to someone who gave you cupcakes. How dare you, Demelza.¡± ¡°They were clearly a bribe!¡± the Director yelled. ¡°I told you,¡± Nikki said softly, genuine hurt in her voice. ¡°They would have been taken out of my inventory at cycle reset, and I didn¡¯t want them to go to waste.¡± The three Watchers shook their heads in disappointment. ¡°They were very delicious,¡± Watcher of Tiros told the chef, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°Thank you for giving them to the Director, even if she didn¡¯t eat any.¡± Nikki smiled at her, tears brimming in her eyes. ¡°It is settled, then,¡± Watcher 2 declared. ¡°No one who repays cupcakes with hostility is worthy of being among our ranks. Demelza, you will be sent to Tiros, into the agreed-upon position.¡± ¡°No, you-¡± With a wave of Watcher 1¡¯s hand, she was gone. He gazed down at the green-haired catgirl. ¡°Enough of that. Nikki. What would you like your life to be like in the new world?¡± Nikki hesitated, then looked at them seriously. ¡°Well, I¡¯ve thought about this a lot, so if you really want to know, we¡¯ll be here a while.¡± ¡°I like this girl,¡± Watcher 3 decided. ¡°She¡¯s honest. We don¡¯t mind listening for ¡®a while¡¯.¡± ¡°Ok, then, here,¡± Nikki said, beaming as she pulled a cake with pink frosting out of her inventory. She slid it onto the Watcher¡¯s desk. ¡°You can eat this while I talk!¡± The three smiled, and the Watcher of Tiros knew all Nikki¡¯s dreams were about to come true. Cycle N/A (Last Page)
1 (A1)GreenHexagon, HazelRune, Xero, Uaillmhian, Ildeuz, Szeken, Slurpgurt, Gurtslurp, FischFingah, Tru (A2) Moose, Bacon, Nani, RustBucket, Rororonin, BlueRains, Lue, Vera, Bismuth, Nicolae (A3) NoobKiller420, LordGloomShadow, Caves, Dragon, Legend, FireKnight, Aaron, Anahar, TeratomaticRock, Remisschip, Beepity (A4) Steel, Fire, Frog, Ringo, Octavius, Keravnos, MimicsBane, Rose, ZomFlora, Waltix (A5) 9, Hash, CuteCat, Amsice, Icehawk, H¨¦raut, Desidrae, Mulberry, Edison, FishyMiner (A6) Me!!!, Avi, Kimi, Y, Aya, Mika, Samuel, Samurai, Staab, Lily 60
2 0
3 Grim, Xander, Soran, Everit, Alex, Zeke, Damon, Bane 8
4 Amy, Red, Bitey, King, Tails, Bluetooth 6
5 Zaila, Zain, Zaina, Zaire, Zajac, Zakaria, Zakhar, Zaki, Zakiya, Zakuro, Zakwani, Zale, Zalika, Zalman, Zalor, Zaltana, Zaman, Zamir, Zamora, Zan 20
6 0
7 0
8 0
9 0
10 Ala, Ele, Ili, Olo, Ulu,Yly 6
11 Lex, Tim, Arby, Kelly 4
12 0
13 0
14 0
15 Jenny AKA Painbringer the Gold 1
16 0
17 0
18 0
19 0
20 Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Grace, Bliss 6
21 0
22 Jessie, Marion, Alva, Ollie, Cleo, Kerry, Carey, Tommie, Sammie, Jamie, Kris, Robbie, Tracy, Merrill, Noel, Rene, Johnnie, Ariel, Jan, Casey, Jackie, Jodie, Rene, Darian, Milan, Jaylin, Devan, Channing, Gerry, Monroe, Arbor, Ash, Charlie, Drew, Ellis, Everest, Jett, Lowen, Moss, Oakley, Onyx, Phoenix, Ridley, Remy, Robin, Royal, Sage, Scout, Tatum, WrenSupport the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. 50
23 0
24 Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta, Echo 5
25 0
26 0
27 Onyx, Agate, Jasper, Ruby, Flint, Granite, Opal, Obsidian, Amethyst 9
28 0
29 0
30 Scarlet, Amber, Violet, Coral, Skye, Jade 6
31 Rusty 1
32 Spike, Spinny, Spiff, Spirit, Spice, Spigot, Spinach, Spit, Spillikin, Spine, Spite, Spiccato 12
33 Abigail, Margaret, Josephine, Eleanor, Ophelia 5
34 Tody, Steve, Carol, Diana, Barry, Matt, Sue, Hal 8
35 Welk, Bjorn, Harek, Jorunn, Poyda, Dagny 6
36 0
37 Big, Small, Cat, Dog, Cheap, Expensive,Deep, Shallow, Down, Up, Early, Late, Easy, Difficult, Far, Near, Fast, Slow, Fat, Thin, Full, Empty, Good, Bad, Happy, Sad, Heavy, Light, Here, There, High, Low, Hot, Cold, In, Out, Interesting, Boring, Light, Dark, Long, Short, Many, Few, New, Old, Open, Close, Rich, Poor, Right, Left, Safe, Dangerous, Smooth, Rough, Soft, Hard, Strong, Weak, Tall, Short, Thick, Thin, Tight, Loose, Warm, Cool, Wet, Dry, Wide, Narrow, Night, Day, Junior, Senior, Better, Worse, Dead, Alive, Pass, Fail, True, False, Hot, Cold, Push, Pull, Ancient, Modern, Calm, Chaotic, Bold, Timid, Capture, Release, Distant, Near, Even, Odd, Eminent, Unknown, Embrace, Reject, Employ, Dismiss, Future, Past, Idle, Active, Incite, Quell, Jump, Plunge, Lend, Borrow, Liquid, Solid, Loose, Tight, Loud, Quiet, Mend, Break, Naive, Sophisticated, Plentiful, Scarce, Receive, Send 130
38 Siri, Bear, Linda, Floofles, Balto, Wolfie McWolfpants 6
39 Dusky, Keleru, Carbn, Lythie, Bmikah, Tlou, Koakai, Tyrin 8
40 Dora, Lissa, Tonya, Usha, Sheba, Lyra 6
41 Hielo, Oighear, Jalid, Aiseu, Led, Riti, Hau, Ijs, Iqhwa, Barafu 10
42 0
43 0
44 0
45 Eldrin, Nericeran, Tamnaeth, Wysavaris, Eldaerenth, Krisrel, Lhoris, Keybalar,Tanathil, Nornorin 10
46 Puff, Whiskers, Felix, Oscar, Smudge, Bscuit, Sylvester, Fluffy, Sasha, Socks, Oreo, Coco 12
47 Lucy 1
48 Qoarluth, Choinoirth, Zodiarth, Froalian, Vuteirth, Pudroat 6
49 Walsh ''Pieces of Eight'', Eldred ''Marooner'', Saxe ''Ghostly'', Willis ''Naive'', Jesse ''Three-Teeth'', Omie ''Blunder'', Jamie, Harvey, Martin, Rondy, Fawn, Tyniece, Keisha, Lauren, Felix, Gian, Juan, Sofia, Camila, Natalie, Rhaelenia, Neaseis, Eluthyia, Neripeia, Adremere, Eireneva, Salodeia, Eireve, Sereima, Jennishell 30
50 Gigi, Misty, Mia, Risa, Patty, Kelly 6
51 0
52 0
53 0
54 Lewis AKA Bonecrusher the Black, A, Ace, Ada, AJ, Al, Ali, Alv, Amy, An, Ani, Arb, Ari, Ash, Ava, Ax, B, Bam, Bea, Bec, Ben, Bo, Bob, Bri, Bro, Bry, C, Cal, Can, Cap, Car, Cas, Cat, Cla, Cle, Col, Coy, Cre, Cru, Dai, Dan, Dar, Das, Dax, Del, Dev, Di, Dre, E, Ed, Eli, Ell, Elo, Eme, Eon, Eva, Eve, Fay, Fi, For, Fre, Ger, Gil, Gus, H, Hal, Han, Hi, Hol, Ian, Ind, Ing, Iso, Ivy, Jac, Jak, Jam, Jan, Jax, Jay, Jef, Jes, Jet, JJ, Jo, Jod, Joe, Jon, Jos, Joy, Jud, Jun, Kai, Kay, Ken, Ker, Ki, Kim, Kip, Kir, Kri, Kyl, L, Lai, Lak, Lee, Leo, Lev, Lia, Liv, Low, Luc, Lun, M, Mar, Mat, Max, Meg, Mer, Mia, Mil, Mo, Mon, Mos, Nat, Ned, Nev, Nic, Nim, Noe, O, Oak, Ola, Oll, Ony, Ora, Oz, Pam, Pau, Pen, Pep, Pho, Ra, Ray, Rei, Rem, Ren, Rex, Rhy, Rid, Rio, Ro, Rob, Rom, Ron, Ros, Roy, Sag, Sam, Sco, Sea, Set, Sha, Sue, Sun, Sy, Taj, Tat, Taz, Ted, The, Tif, Tim, TJ, Tom, Tra, Tro, Tru, Ty, Uma, Val, Van, Ver, Vi, Vic, Wes, Wil, Wol, Wre, X, Xyl, Z, Zac, Zan, Ze, Zek, Zia, Zoe, Zol 199
55 Veronica, Stacy, Melody 3
56 Hark, Praar, Fuiq, Strez, Reng, Bragiat, Blotresb, Krirzerd, Hurbekt, Clilaarm, Pheelmia, Mort, Unk, Stiaft, Weehxe, Vrehus, Bomzulx, Gaasvuth, Swalaath, Cralbiez, Glor, Lysz, Bynk, Xil, Greal, Cadrorm, Josvar, Kroibank, Hesionk, Chiomuisb, Kenqea, Jift, Stila, Fraart, Chinsdi, Uhees, Lalsohx, Thuplank, Woklianx, Throheefia, Stur, Clix, Xots, Kliekx, Cryrm, Dihduirk, Ravriank, Grisigz, Krultald, Giagrialb, Grug, Wruif, Gnogsi, Friga, Truhx, Brabrios, Qumrethia, Deanath, Seekvelsee, Wraasoig, Coits, Drec, Haasz, Lird, Oild, Criekzeaq, Eguzz, Bleegsiold, Absats, Gligat, Crasz, Friossea, Sefta, Tozz, Fruilsi, Afaagsia, Pussoinxee, Ielkian, Geatmioszai, Vineenq 80
57 0
58 0
59 0
60 Athena, Calliope, Pandora, Iris, Nyx, Aphrodite 6
Cycle Error:Void (Emmy) The Festival of Fish was going to start when the first star appeared in the sky. Emmy prepared herself, putting on a sweater with a fish pattern and tying bows onto her tail. She was finishing the last bow when her son opened the door and peeked in. He saw her smile and pushed the door open. ¡°Why do I have to wear ribbons?¡± he asked, walking in. ¡°I don¡¯t like them.¡± ¡°It¡¯s tradition,¡± Emmy said, looking at his tail. Calvin had done a good job of tying the bows. ¡°We have to do traditions.¡± Luke wasn¡¯t convinced. ¡°Can¡¯t I wear just one?¡± ¡°That would mean you only like eating one type of fish,¡± she pointed out. ¡°Well¡­¡± The kit looked at his tail critically. He pointed at a brown bow. ¡°I could live without pike. Can I take the pike ribbon off?¡± Emmy held back a laugh. ¡°Ok. You can take the pike ribbon off. But only that one.¡± Luke cheered, yanking the ribbon off his tail. He held it in his hand, clearly debating if he could survive without other types of fish, too. ¡°Come on, help me choose which necklace to wear,¡± Emmy said, opening her jewelry box. He walked over, dropping the ribbon to the ground. ¡°A fish necklace?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have any fish necklaces.¡± ¡°Maeve does. Mas has a fish charm for his earring. It looks dumb, but he likes it. What¡¯s this one?¡± Emmy pulled out the necklace he¡¯d pointed at. ¡°It¡¯s a locket. Your dad gave it to me before you were born.¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°It opens?¡± he asked. ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°What¡¯s inside?¡± Emmy took a breath to reply, but paused. ¡°I¡­ can¡¯t remember.¡± She flicked it open.
Activate memory restore? Doing so will not erase current memory. Yes | No
She stared at the box. ¡°It¡¯s empty,¡± Luke said, taking the necklace. Emmy hit Yes. With a flash, memories poured in. A dungeon. A dragon. A life with kobolds. Players. Catgirls. An amusement park. A secret. Forbidden knowledge. ¡­Calvin. Calvin came running into the room. He locked eyes with her, and she knew he was getting memories back, too. He saw their son and hesitated. ¡°Luke, could you¡­ go get your shoes on?¡± ¡°Ok.¡± He went out, swinging the door closed behind him. Emmy stared at Calvin. ¡°How¡­¡± He dropped onto their bed, starting to laugh. ¡°It took ten years for us to open that locket?¡± ¡°I never thought to,¡± Emmy said, still processing everything. Calvin was doing something with his screens. ¡°I remember all the codes. Everything¡¯s here. It all worked.¡± A shower of gold coins fell onto the bed next to him. ¡°We can get Luke whatever he wants at the festival tonight.¡± ¡°Will using the codes attract attention?¡± Emmy asked. ¡°Some would, but most won¡¯t be flagged. As long as I don¡¯t overuse anything, we¡¯re good.¡± More things appeared: enchanted jewelry, a few books, some metal trinkets Emmy remembered making¡­ ¡°What should we do?¡± she asked. ¡°Should we tell everyone? It¡­ explains so much. Why no one has parents, why there weren¡¯t any children a decade ago, why everyone on the planet speaks the same language¡­ Why our town is so close to the kobold town.¡± ¡°No,¡± Calvin said. He picked up a book, a diary. ¡°I¡¯ll give these to their owners, but we shouldn¡¯t volunteer information.¡± Emmy nodded. ¡°Ok.¡± She looked up. ¡°I wonder what happened that last cycle¡­¡± ¡°Given our religion talks about a ¡®goddess¡¯, has to be that Admin 5 won,¡± he said. ¡°She was on our side. We¡¯re safe. Luke is safe.¡± ¡°Good to know,¡± Emmy said softly. From the living room came their son¡¯s voice. ¡°Mooooom! Can we go yet!¡± Calvin smiled, getting to his feet. ¡°So how¡¯s this for a happily ever after?¡± Emmy stood, smiling back. ¡°It¡¯s everything I could ask for.¡± Cycle Error:Void (Epilogue) Dear Diary, Hi. I¡¯m mostly writing here to check if the handwriting in this book is really mine. Looks pretty similar so far. I don¡¯t remember writing any of this. I don¡¯t remember a dungeon, or a floor with six shops. I can fully believe Avi trained dracoraptors as mounts, but I can¡¯t quite picture him as Via. I absolutely can¡¯t picture Gin or Emmy as kobolds. And I was on first-name basis with dragons? That¡¯s kinda where I draw the line. I¡¯m sure Bonecrusher the Black and Painbringer the Gold are very nice people, but they do insist on being respected. Calling them by their names would end in death. The kobolds do love parties, though. Sometimes at night we can hear their music echoing down from the mountain. A part of me always wants to sneak up to their cave entrance and watch, but that¡¯s an exceptionally bad idea. Avi is worried Cali will try going up there when she gets older. Not that they¡¯d hurt her if she was caught. They aren¡¯t evil, but they are kinda mean to outsiders. I think they¡¯d pull her into their caves and very politely not let her leave. Sorry, that¡¯s a tangent. Calvin isn¡¯t mentioned anywhere in this diary. How did he get it if I didn¡¯t know him? How would he know I even had a diary? I mention Emmy a couple times, but she isn¡¯t the one who gave this book to me. Maybe I should just ask him how and where he got it, that¡¯s an idea. ¡­I just wrote ¡°I mention¡±. So I guess I do believe this book was mine. If it was, then, let¡¯s see¡­ Avi, still the love of my life, is the town¡¯s vet and wild animal tamer. We have all sorts of pets that very much shouldn¡¯t be pets. Yesterday he and Cali found a cockatrice, and they spent twenty minutes explaining why we need to keep it. I can usually say no to one or the other, but now that Cali¡¯s old enough to join her dad on ¡°Friend Finding Adventures¡± I¡¯m doomed. Living with the two most adorable people in the world has disadvantages. And of course I talk about them before myself. I run a diner. Our house is built above it, and we have a great view of the river. Three people work here; me and Bacon, and Samurai on the weekends. Or whenever she¡¯s bored and has nowhere better to be. Mika is a blacksmith. Well, that¡¯s her official title. She and Emmy are the Makers of Things. Metal, glass, fabric, wood, if you need a Thing made, they can make it! Unless that thing will be used to bring wild animals into town. Mika pretty much refuses to make things for Avi, which I admit is probably a good thing.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I should add, Mika and Avi are good friends. They¡¯re in the town¡¯s band together, and get along well as long as no animals are mentioned. Aya is the town guard. If anything goes wrong, she can help. She has a fighting class once a week for adults and kits. Kimi¡¯s kits have been banned for ¡°enthusiasm¡±, and now get private lessons. Samurai is also a guard, but only when needed. Mostly she¡¯s a hired worker. Need an extra set of hands for literally anything? Samurai can help! Samantha runs the general store and makes alcohol. She¡¯s very good at both. Samuel and Staab are fishers. They have an area where they keep fish, so I guess they¡¯re also technically fish farmers, but anyways. Together they provide about a quarter of what everyone eats. Gin runs a bakery. Occasionally she tries to sell other food, but while it¡¯s always delicious, it¡¯s too unhealthy to last long. The town isn¡¯t big enough to support two restaurants, and my diner sells food people want to eat on a weekly basis. Not food that makes you go ¡°wow, I¡¯ve never heard of deep-fried asparagus before, let me try that once and never again¡±. Gigi runs the hair salon and has a peach orchard. Yes, everyone knows to get a haircut before harvest starts. Y is a healer/doctor. In cities they say the jobs are separate, but for our town Y just does everything. He does a good job. With how many times Avi has been attacked and bitten by wild animals, I should know. And Kimi, who I thought¡­ No. She is my sister. I know she is, even if I never said it in this diary. And my sister is mayor. She does all the taxes, makes sure all the infrastructure runs, takes care of paperwork, and somehow still manages to give Aya a headache with experiments. ¡­Last week, Kimi and Y made an airship prototype and sent their younger two up in it for a test. It works great, but they forgot to add a way to get down. They asked Aya to somehow shoot the balloon without endangering the kits, which I¡¯m sure wasn¡¯t difficult at all, nope. Cali was super jealous she hadn¡¯t been invited on the adventure, and Y has promised her a seat on the next airship they make. I¡­ I trust them, but a lot of times I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t find out what my girl is doing until after the ¡°adventure¡± is over. I think that¡¯s all the names I saw in here. I¡¯m not sure who Nat or Mar are, they might be kobolds? I know a Larissa who runs a merchant ship, with two men as her crew. Maybe they¡¯re the party of ¡°real players¡± I talked about a lot? A long time ago there was a Lily here, but she moved to the city before Cali was born. ¡­Yeah, the handwriting is mine. Somehow. I still don¡¯t remember writing any of it. I¡¯m running out of space on the page now, so¡­ Goodnight, Dungeon!
. . . . . Authors Thanks! Holy cow. We¡¯re at the end. I don¡¯t even know what to write, just, thanks sososo much for reading! It¡¯s been an adventure for sure! Nikki¡¯s story is, mostly, at an end. However, the story of those kids I mentioned in the epilogue will continue. I¡¯ve got a very short story about them going up on Patreon, then I¡¯ll start their story when they¡¯re slightly older. I¡¯m making it so no knowledge of this story is needed to read Cali¡¯s diary.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. And yes, of course it¡¯ll be a diary. With a bit more non-diary pieces in it than this story has, but still mostly diary. For the moment, you¡¯ll be able to buy the full, fully-edited epub/pdf of Vol. 3 on Patreon. I''ll post an update here when I start the next story later this month, or if there''s any interesting updates to let everyone know about. So yeah! Thanks for following me along this journey! It''s meant a lot to me! ~Sadie Sequel is live!!! The sequel is here! Hop over and enjoy the Private Diary of a Future [Villain] [Hero] [Other]! Join our brave young protagonists as they travel the country, rooting out injustice and uncovering world-shaking mysteries! All the while, they''re being watched by the kind, benevolent, wonderful Goddess Bonnie (aka Watcher of Tiros, aka Admin 5), who takes her job of making sure they don''t die very seriously. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Wait, no, wrong image, erase that one. Sorry, image not found... To read the new story, it''s not necessary to have read this one, but there are plenty of cameos and nods and things that make sense if you''ve read this one. There''s also a 9k-word interlude on my patreon which takes place six years after the end of this story and seven years before the new one begins. It''s free to read, so check it out. And while you''re there, sign up as a free member. In February I''m giving away 100 1-month tier-1 memberships, so hop in and read ahead! . . . Ok, kits, one normal group photo, that''s all I ask. Just line up and smile, for ten seconds... ...Eh, close enough.