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.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

***

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!

----------------------------------------