"HELLOOOO? IS ANYONE IN THERE, PEBBLE BRAIN?!"
The voice was high-pitched, loud, and packed with enough attitude to fuel a rocket ship.
A tiny girl, no bigger than my thumb, zipped through the air and hovered in front of my rock body. She had shimmering wings, a little dress made of petals, and the angriest face I had ever seen.
She tapped impatiently on my smooth surface. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Ugh, finally! I thought the system gave me a dud," she huffed, putting her tiny hands on her hips. "Took you long enough to boot up. Were you already napping? You literally just got here!"
I was, I thought back at her, my mental voice as dry as a desert. It was great. You made it… not great.
The little fairy recoiled as if I'd zapped her. "You can talk?! And you already have a bad attitude?! Oh, this is just perfect. The Fairy Council sticks me with another weirdo."
She flew in an agitated circle around me, her wings making a furious buzzing sound.
"Okay, listen up, rock-head, because I'm only saying this once. My name is FaeLina, and I'm the highly-qualified Dungeon Fairy who has the miserable job of babysitting you. My purpose is to tell you what to do and hopefully stop you from doing really, really dumb things that get us both erased from existence."
Oh, great, I thought. She's the tutorial character. The annoying, unskippable one.
"First!" she shouted, pointing a tiny, accusatory finger at me. "You need a name for yourself and your dungeon! And it needs to be scary! Something that makes brave heroes wet their pants! The Dungeon League ranks us on scariness, you know! Think big! 'The Gore-Maw Caverns'! 'The Chasm of Endless Screaming'! 'The Pit of Certain Doom'!"
I considered her suggestions. They all sounded very loud and drafty.
My name is Mochi, I decided. Like the soft, squishy, comforting rice cake. It felt right. And let's call the dungeon 'The Comfy Corner.'
FaeLina stopped flying so abruptly she almost fell out of the air. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
"Mochi...?" she finally whispered, her voice trembling. "The... Comfy Corner?! Are you actively trying to be the laughingstock of the entire multiverse? We'll be ranked lower than 'Brenda's Slightly Damp Basement'!"
It sounds nice and cozy, I replied calmly.
[Name set to 'Mochi.']
[Dungeon Name set to 'The Comfy Corner.']
[New Title Unlocked: King of Pillows (You wish!)]
"See?! even the system is making fun of you!" FaeLina shrieked. She flew right up to my face, her eyes narrowed. "Look, your job is simple! Lure in adventurers! Kill them with traps and monsters! Absorb their life energy as Dungeon Points! Use the points to build a bigger, scarier dungeon! It's the glorious circle of life! A beautiful, violent circle!"
That sounded like an awful lot of work. The complete opposite of a nap.
No thanks.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'NO THANKS'?!"
It's a bad plan, I explained patiently. As a game designer, I knew that fighting gives you resources fast, but it costs a lot of energy and requires constant management. It's much smarter to set up something that generates points over time without you having to do anything. Yeah, no. I'm going to play the long game. The lazy game.
FaeLina just stared at me, her tiny brain clearly struggling to process my logic. "So... your master plan... is to do nothing?"
Before she could have a complete meltdown, a loud siren blared in my head.
[WARNING! SOMEONE'S COMING!]
[IT'S A NOOB ADVENTURER | LEVEL: 4 | DANGER: NOT VERY, BUT STILL ANNOYING]
"Aaaaah! An adventurer!" FaeLina screamed, all her previous arguments forgotten in a wave of panic. "He's almost here! You have 10 points! Buy a trap! Go to the store! Quick, quick, quick!"
A menu opened in my head. I calmly looked it over.
+---------------------------------------+
| Dungeon Store - Stuff for Floor 1 |
|---------------------------------------|
| TRAPS (Pokey Things) | Cost |
|------------------------|--------------|
| Spike Pit (Ouch!) | 15 DP |
| Arrow Shooter (Thwip!)| 20 DP |
|---------------------------------------|
| HAZARDS (Silly Things)| Cost |
|------------------------|--------------|
| Wobbly Floor Tile | 2 DP |
| Fluffy Moss Patch | 5 DP |
| Annoying Water Drip | 1 DP |
+---------------------------------------+
"You can't even afford the spike pit! This is a disaster! We're doomed!" FaeLina cried, pulling at her own hair.
Spike pit? I thought. Ugh, the cleanup would be a nightmare. Arrow shooter? Requires aiming and reloading. Too much effort.
My non-existent eyes landed on the moss. Fluffy Moss Patch. Description: It's just really, really soft.
It was perfect. It was a strategy of pure, baffling weirdness.
I'll take the moss, I said. Put it right in the middle of the room.
[-5 DP. One (1) Fluffy Moss Patch has been made.]
With a soft poof!, a small, round patch of bright green moss appeared on the dirt floor. It glowed with a gentle purple light and looked ridiculously inviting.
FaeLina was speechless. She looked pale, defeated, and utterly horrified.
"Moss," she whispered, her voice full of despair. "Our first line of defense is... gardening."
CRASH!
The weak section of the cave wall exploded inwards, showering the room in dirt. A young man in cheap, clanking armor stumbled inside, tripped over his own feet, and just barely caught his balance. He held up a short, flimsy-looking sword.
"BEHOLD! I AM KEVIN THE COURAGEOUS!" he yelled, his voice cracking halfway through. "GIVE ME YOUR TREASURE!"
He marched bravely into the room.
And then he stopped dead in his tracks.
His eyes fell upon the fluffy moss patch.
FaeLina covered her face with her tiny hands. "Oh, we are so, so dead."