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.

Stolen story; please report.

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!

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*****

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.