Amanda admired the fantastical realm where the whole landscape was made out of household materials. The ribbon grass, pencil trees, cutlery buildings, and the teacup people riding on egg carton buses.
The couple moved carefully, wary of monsters or traps.
The road they stood on was painted with watercolor. The sky had cotton candy clouds drifting around and crochet animals frolicked around the ribbon grass.
What other wonders did this realm hide? What dangers lurked behind all this beauty?
As they walked to the city, Robert noticed it wasn't getting bigger as he expected. The visual angle remained the same, which made it seem like an optical trick or some illusion. But his fairy eyes would tell him if it was the latter. Giving it some thought, it could also be that it was some rule of the realm.
Anything went in those passage realms. But he wasn't sensing danger and his future sight worked as intended so he wasn't being jammed by another Time user.
When the city entered the range of his spatial senses, the cutlery buildings were as tall as he was. But they changed size no more.
The inhabitants noticed them.
"The giants are attacking!"
"Run for your lives!"
"I'm too cute to die!"
Chaos. The people, cups and mugs and teapots, all ran in every direction, causing some accidents. Crumpled cardboard and porcelain chips flew everywhere.
Teams of red mugs rushed forward, carrying colorful cardboard tubes.
\Fire!\ The lead mug shouted.
The other mugs aimed the tube and, with a loud pop, a shower of streamers and glitter flew toward Robert and Amanda.
He got no warning in his danger sense but interposed the attack with a wall of force, nonetheless.
A blue box appeared before the humans. "Main Quest! Destroy the City!"
"Damn, this is a Dungeon!" Robert cursed. "And a storytelling one!"
"What? Are you serious?" Amanda gasped. Two Dungeons in her world? That was too good to be true! If only she could boot those corrupt crooks out of the board and replace them with her corrupt crooks!
"I think we should leave," Robert said. "I don't believe clearing a storytelling Dungeon as the bad guys will do us any good."
These kinds of Dungeons ran a scenario, placing the delvers in one of many roles in the scenario. Rewards depended on the scenario and how well the winners performed their role. But it was always related to the role. What would the Dungeon grant two invaders who committed genocide?
The other thing about these Dungeons was that they always gave hints to the role picking process. People who knew the Dungeon's behavior could choose their roles.
Robert led Amanda out, under fire from the cupboard army. The assault was fierce. Ping pong balls, darts, and, in the end, fireworks, the army spared no effort to repeal the giant invaders.
Once outside, they stopped for a breather, under a slanted wall of Force to keep the rain away from them.
"That was crazy! “Amanda shrieked with excitement. "We're those really glitter launchers?"
"Yes. I didn't sense any danger from them but after that exercise with Veronica, I don't rely on that to assess threats, especially when you are involved," Robert reported rather mechanically.
Amanda's grin only widened at the end. "Are we going back in?"
"Yes. But I'm trying to figure out the trigger to select a storyline," Robert said. In the mind palace, iRobert scoffed. It was he who had to sift through a dozen books to find a hint.
"What about the visual distortion?"
"Yes, that's my main lead. I think that by the time the distortion began, the scenario had already been selected."
"It didn't happen the first time we visited this place," she recalled.
"I think I got it. Thanks, by the way."
"You're welcome!"
"It was our mindset. We entered this time with suspicion and wary of enemies. I believe that if we enter with a carefree attitude and open hearts, the Dungeon will change scenarios." Robert said. Amanda puckered her lips to stop from laughing at him. "You can laugh if you want."
She swallowed and relaxed. Then she smiled and leaned on his arm. " It's gone now. Let's go back."
They entered the Dungeon. This time, the couple tried to recapture the bewilderment and wonder of the first visit. Robert knew they wouldn't face any threats until they reached the city so he just enjoyed the company. A date in the Dungeon.
This time, the parallax was as expected and the cutlery city grew to occupy a bigger visual angle with each step. When they reached the outskirts, the cupboard people were as tall as the humans.
A blue box appeared before them. "Main Quest! Evacuate the City!"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
And then at the corner of their vision no matter how they moved or where they looked, another box. "Citizens evacuated: 0 / 2,954,382".
"That's a big city," Robert whistled.
This time, the polite cupboard people reacted in a friendly manner, wishing them a good day and so on.
"The city will come into attack," Robert said, scaring a mug that was near them. "This is the Dungeon's scenario. We are supposed to play the role of rescuers. We need to find where the shelter is, and then work to move the people there."
He was a bit worried because Serendipity had ticked up by a percentile point when the main quest was announced.
Robert and Amanda tried to find the local authorities. They found a black coffee mug with a badge and a mustache printed on it.
"Sir," Amanda called. "Are you with the local police forces?"
"Surely am, miss," the mug answered, the mustache moving as it spoke. It had no visible mouth. "How may I help you?"
"My boyfriend and me, we are college students. We would like to learn more about your fine city's emergency and crisis response protocols. You know, how would you deal with the population in case of a disaster or enemy attack. More specifically, where we should take shelter in these situations."
The officer listened carefully. We have shelters annexed to the subway stations. So, in case of an emergency, find the nearest subway entrance and go down there. If you look at the signage at the intersections, there's a little train icon with an arrow, it points to the nearest subway station."
"Amazing!" Amanda gushed. "This is so well-planned! And what about the citizen's readiness?"
"Everyone is quite aware," the cop haughty harrumphed. "We had a few nasty situations a few years ago. It wasn't nice, no."
Robert checked the signage. The signs were made of brown cardboard with mixed font letter cutouts from newspapers and magazines, like in those TV show ransom letters.
They found the subway entrance and climbed down the stairs. The steps were rulers of all kinds and shapes. In the tunnels, giant bulbs with two metal legs hanging from the roof provided light. Robert recognized those. They were LED, tiny light sources people used before the rift cataclysm. Back when electricity-based circuits were a thing. The station floor was a plastic surface filled with rows upon rows of stubby white round pegs. Four letters were printed on each peg. And walls were plastic bricks of every shape and size, featuring the same pegs. In fact, it seemed that everything was.
At the station, they saw a train arrive. The engine was a blue cylinder on plastic wheels with a white face in front, not unlike the Prime Vestiges. It had a box at the back where the conductor was supposed to sit and pulled wagons. A red number "1" was painted on the engine chassis. Some cupboard people moved in and out of the train, and then it went on its way.
After watching a scene that was two hundred years old, they explored the place until they found the shelter entrance. It had a big circular door with plastic hinges. A green plate with the words "EXIT" printed in white hung above the door.
Robert tried to see if the door would open but a slender plastic glass with some cartoon characters approached. "Hey, don't touch that!"
"Sorry," Robert answered. I was just curious. "When does this door open?"
"It will only open if the city alarm system is triggered." The plastic glass replied.
"Would this alarm trigger during an origami dragons attack?" Amanda asked.
"Goodness! Don't say such a thing. Last time we got attacked by them, we lost half the city!"
Robert was surprised. "Are they that destructive!"
"Yes! They are almost impervious to our glitter cannons, and they can breathe soda! Actually, more like vomit it, but it's such a disgusting word, right?"
"I think it's fine if the alternative is to sacrifice accuracy," Amanda said with a wink as she tugged on Robert's arm. "Thanks for the information, sir. We will stop bothering you."
They climbed back to the surface.
"Let's go to the library!" Robert suggested.
*
*
The library didn't have real books. Instead, it had plastic shelves full of toy books, just plastic blocks with book cover stickers. It looked more like a child's playset – just like the rest of the city – than the real deal.
With that, they went to the outskirts of the city on the other side. The cardboard cutouts mountains where the origami dragons lived dominated the horizon. The clouds above were made of loose threads of dark gray wool, with aluminum foil lightning bolts hanging from them.
After watching the mountains for a while, they saw the papercraft monsters flying from one mountain to another.
"Can we mount a defense here?" Amanda asked.
"We can but it will only stall the monsters. These roleplay Dungeons railroad the delvers into the scenario. if we are supposed to evacuate the citizens, that's what we need to focus on," Robert replied.
"I think I should put some prickly pear cacti here," Amanda suggested.
"Yeah, I don't see how they'll hurt. Go for it."
She took a handful of seeds from her storage ring and a mound of giant seeds the size of basketballs threatened to bury them. Green essence roiled around them. Robert grabbed Amanda and ran, slowing down his perception of time with Haste. Once out of range, they stopped.
"Why are the seeds this big?" Amanda asked, bewildered.
"No. It's not the seeds. it is us who are this small."
"Did the Dungeon shrink us?"
"I think so," Robert replied.
"Damn!" Nervous, Amanda bit her lower lip.
The seeds started to sprout, growing into a giant cacti cluster. The pears grew and fired at the mountains. They exploded into a shower of needles, piercing and getting stuck in the cardboard cutouts, knocking them down. Roars rang as the knocked mountains crushed dozens of origami dragons. The survivors took to the skies. It was a swarm.
Air raid sirens rang throughout the city. The counter that floated at the edge of their sight started to tick upward.
Robert shifted into his fairy form. He was four stories tall. He scooped Amanda in his hand and flew up.
"This is ridiculous!" Amanda shouted. She channeled more essence into the cacti and fired another volley of pears. The needles pierced several origami dragons and dragged them down to the ground.
Robert used his free hand to fire volleys of Magic Missiles at the dragons. Between the two of them, no origami dragon could reach the city. The counter kept rising, and then stopped as the sirens did.
"Amanda, stop attacking!" Robert said in a hurry. "If we end the event too soon, the citizens won't all reach the shelter!"
They let a few origami dragons reach the city. They started to vomit colorful fizzy soda onto the buildings and the streets. The sirens returned with a vengeance and more citizens entered the shelters.
Robert flew around, slapping the dragons around, keeping them contained to the outskirts. One fell into their own soda and got damp, losing the ability to fly.
"Oh. They're made out of paper!" Amanda realized. She started to squirt water into the dragons, making them damp, soft, and even forcing them to tear their delicate silk paper bodies to move.
They kept the charade for half an hour, and the counter stopped at 2,777,119 / 2,954,382.
Streamer cannons fired all over the city. A blue box appeared. "QUEST COMPLETE!"
The whole city fell silent, as if the objects had lost their animating force.
Ether flooded them, pushing their stars' completion by 2%. And then, a toy box protected by shrink wrap fell from the sky in front of them. It was a brick building set from a famous four-letter brand from yore.
Robert read the name of the set. "Amanda and Robert's daring City defense."
It had a list of the included mini figures. It had Robert, Amanda, Officer Coffee Mug, four plastic Origami Dragons, and three "Scared Cupboard Citizens". The toy set was completely mundane but still MISB.
Fairy-Robert sat with Amanda on his knee. "The rewards are disappointing," he murmured.
"Two percent of the second star is fine," Amanda said. "I'm more worried about how We're going to return to our normal size."
Robert tried transforming back to his human self. he was still tiny. The toy box was as tall as he was.
"Well, drat. Let's see if getting out of the Dungeon fixes this."
It didn't.